Settling the Books
by AcidKraken
Summary: A botched errand brings an unexpected visitor, unwanted memories, and a desire for revenge Charon never knew he had. (Gen/action. Pre-canon fic from Charon's POV. Light angst/light gore, amnesia/flashbacks, and references to brainwashing.)
1. Chapter 1

He wasn't supposed to kill the slavers. He was supposed to _work _with them.

It didn't matter how many times Charon reminded himself of that fact. At this point, nothing could loosen the vice grip of his finger on his shotgun's trigger.

He'd done so many jobs like this one, but the problem was, he'd always done them alone. There were two smoothskin mercs with him this time - a pair of slavers from the Lincoln Memorial. Perched on a lookout above Dupont Circle, they watched the last of the daylight fade. They'd been waiting for hours, and it was almost dark enough to move.

As a rule, Charon didn't mind stakeouts. Sitting still and keeping his mouth shut were both artforms, ones he'd gladly taken up under Ahzrukhal's employ. Still, he couldn't shake it - something odd had come over him, and all he could do to keep from fidgeting was grip his shotgun like he was trying to break it in half. He tried to remind himself - he was here to kill raiders, lots of them. Too many to take on his own. He needed the slavers, and he needed them _alive_, especially because they worked on Ahzrukhal's dime. That was just common sense, but all things considered, he was all too ready to pepper them with buckshot until there wasn't anything recognizable left behind.

The slavers were too close for comfort, close enough to smell the stink of chems and booze that wafted from them. Unfortunately, personal space was in short supply where they'd chosen to hunker down. They squatted between heaps of bricks in what remained of an office building, flanked by a gauntlet of gutted terminals. The slavers leaned out just enough to take stock of the raider camp in the roundabout below. Charon crouched behind them, certain he'd gone crazy. This feeling _couldn't _be personal. He'd never met these smoothskins before, and that was where it didn't add up. What came over him now was nothing short of a vendetta.

The resentment, in a fashion, was mutual. Charon guessed the slavers were hurting for caps, or they wouldn't have taken a job from a ghoul. The sidelong glances they gave him now were no less venomous than the ones they'd been giving him all day. Forced to sit and endure it, Charon began to seethe, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Dirty looks weren't worth getting angry over, and any ghoul with an ounce of sense knew that. He wasn't that petty, but given the situation, he'd begun to doubt himself.

Even the most trivial things about them chafed. There was the smell, naturally, but their names trumped everything. Most wastelanders went by something vaguely threatening, but these slavers hadn't bothered. One of them, a woman, called herself Knicknack. It was hardly menacing, but at least it made sense - her pack sported a festoon of rusted handcuffs, and at her belt, a collection of electronic slave collars. Her bomber jacket was encrusted with wasteland trash. Charon pegged her for a pack rat. The other slaver, Bug, was it? He was stick skinny and sunburned, hair dreaded from neglect. Bug was a shitty name. Charon had stopped trying to sort that one out.

Stupid nicknnames were only the half of it. They were both amateurs, beyond a doubt. Bug fumbled with an expensive-looking sniper rifle, straining to get the best view of the Circle. Knicknack bounced her knee a mile a minute, tweaked out on chems. Against his better judgment, Charon scoffed to himself. Knicknack twitched and glanced over her shoulder, returning Charon's stare with narrowed eyes.

"Hey," she barked. "Zombie. Do I have something in my teeth?"

"No," he replied, as flatly as he could manage. "You do not."

He bit his tongue as soon as the words came out. The prospect of speaking to either of them was nearly too much to handle. The slaver rolled her bloodshot eyes, and it was all Charon could muster to keep the shotgun flat on his lap.

"Fuck's sake," she said. "Do you take _everything _literally? I meant I don't like being stared at, asshole."

"Nick. _Stop_." Bug sighed, hoisted his sniper rifle over the ledge, and jerked it on it's tripod. "You know he's not... _all there_. That's what the other shuffler said, right? He's not a talker. Screwed up in the head or something. Just drop it. C'mere and help me."

Knicknack ignored her partner. She looked at Charon and crinkled her nose, undeterred.

"I don't give a shit what that corpse in a suit said," she growled. "If you got something to say, ghoul, then say it. Otherwise, piss off. We got raiders to take care of."

Charon kept his mouth shut.

"Smart zombie," she said.

She stared him down, daring him to talk back. Despite the hostility, settling into their hideout seemed to have loosened her up a bit, considering how she'd splayed out next to Bug. Charon grimaced and looked away. This was the most she'd spoken to him since they met. He guessed the sack of jet she'd procured from Ahzrukhal was the main culprit. She was elbow deep in it, pulling out canisters as quickly as she could suck them dry. Bug shot her an impatient glare and cleared his throat, sighing as she took the hint and kicked the bag aside. To Charon's relief, she turned away, settled into a squat, and leaned over the ledge beside her partner.

"_Finally_," Bug sighed. "C'mon, Knicknack. Spot. Do something. What are we looking at down there?"

"There's a group of raiders at Dupont and 19th." Knicknack paused to take a drag of jet, then set to tapping her fingers on the stock of the rifle. "Third floor, overlooking the roundabout. Sharpshooters. Maybe three? Can't get a good count yet... Shit, and maybe two more off Massachusetts. They've got eyes on the whole damn Circle. And then there's the whole... mess of them at the fountain..."

Charon grimaced. He didn't need a reminder, especially not one driven home by the sound of her nervous fidgeting. He knew the situation below wasn't pretty, but he began to think that maybe, just maybe, asking for backup was a mistake. He'd seen the raider camp for the first time barely twelve hours prior. One look was enough to send him back to Underworld, at a loss. It was a first, for him, asking his employer for help. It was also a first for Ahzrukhal to willingly offer it, and Charon couldn't shake the feeling that the end result was charity disguised as punishment. Maybe Ahzrukhal knew something he didn't. Something that would explain this urge to kill, which had moved from a vague feeling to a clear suggestion in his brain.

_Shoot them._ That thought repeated, over and over, like a broken record. It didn't make sense - only his orders were supposed to do that, and it wasn't in his orders to kill them. The commands he'd been given were simple enough. Go to Dupont Circle, Ahzrukhal had said. Kill the raiders camped there. Let the slavers take care of the rest. As always, his employer's voice stuck in his head, louder than any of his own thoughts. Louder than his compulsion, too, for now. Charon tried to push the thought down, but it kept surfacing, over and over - he couldn't remember the last time he actually _wanted _something. Worst of all, Ahzrukhal didn't say _not _to kill them. He had a terrifying amount of wiggle room.

"Shit, are those _landmines?" _Knicknack pulled back from the scope, and then jammed her eye against it again. She counted on her breath for a few seconds, then trailed off, defeated. "Just... Look at this fortress they scraped together. Sandbags and all. We're not being paid enough. Christ. They're getting rowdy, now. Just _lookit _this shit. "

With a backwards glance at Charon, she threw up a hand towards the ledge.

"I meant _you_, dickhead," she barked. "Go check it out. Party's starting."

Charon slid over grudgingly and ducked next to the windowsill. Down below, a wall of sandbags, barbed wire and aluminum siding circled the roundabout, where the glow of the raiders' camp cut through the dark. Generators ran on all sides, powering a rats' nest of christmas lights. Slipshod tents circled a marble fountain at the roundabout's center, where a handful of raiders ganged up on one of their companions. Typical. It started as a minor scuffle, ramping up as raiders closed in on all sides. Some threw bottles at the unlucky casualty while another closed in, eviscerating him with a trench knife. As if his shrieking wasn't loud enough, someone sprayed their assault rifle in the air. Knicknack laughed.

"I don't blame you for turning tail," she snickered. "Not a pretty sight, is it? I guess even a stupid lug like you gets spooked sometimes."

Charon ignored her and looked past the raiders. They were only half the reason he'd stopped looking over the ledge. There were worse things down there. Not far from the fountain was a cage made of pieced-together chain link fence, and it held two wastelanders, huddled together in the corner furthest from the entry. He imagined they still held out hope of a rescue, and in that, they were sorely mistaken. Charon pitied them. It was the definition of shit luck, being rescued by two slavers and a ghoul. But shit luck was what came of doing business with Ahzrukhal, especially when deals went south. By the time this was all over, they'd either be headed to Paradise Falls or dead, and it was Charon's job to make sure there wasn't a third option.

He was no stranger to work like this, but straightening out Ahzrukhal's debts generally took on a more palatable form. One look at him, and most people with sense coughed up caps right away. It didn't involve a bounty, and it certainly didn't involve slavers. Often enough it didn't even involve violence, if Charon managed to do it right. This time wasn't supposed to be any different, but Ahzrukhal's debts didn't typically stumble into raider camps, and Charon's appeal for backup put ideas in his employer's head. Ahzrukhal was all too happy to rise to the challenge.

All things considered, the situation was fishy. Charon didn't have the best memory. It tended to fade in and out, and thinking back more than a few months didn't yield much more than vague feelings. He knew for a fact that Ahzrukhal took full advantage of that. This situation - the bounty, the slavers, the debt - smacked of another one of his sadistic games. The knot in Charon's stomach was proof enough. Not much could make it go away once it started, but killing his backup was a tempting remedy.

Charon's eyes wandered from the collars on Knicknack's backpack, to her pockmarked face, and back again. If only this was one of the odd occasions where his memory _didn't _fail him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her, or something _like _her. His hands, still strangling his shotgun, had started to cramp. She stared right back at him, but thankfully, she kept her mouth shut. Charon scooted back from the ledge, putting as much distance between him and the slaver as possible. It didn't help, and worst of all, it made Knicknack grin.

"I don't bite," she said.

Charon bit back a curse. She thought he was cowering, and she was dead wrong.

"No, really," she cooed. "You're lucky we're here to help. Your boss is smart, giving you qualified backup. He could have just paid the raiders for his little bounty. They already did half the work, putting them in a cage. But he knows better than to make a deal with those tweaked-out fucks."

Charon scoffed. She was one to talk. Knicknack shot him a withering look.

"That's it. I'm done trying to be nice, zombie. I warned you once already."

"Don't get sour," Bug said. "Tall, dark and stupid over here's got a point." He kicked at the growing pile of jet canisters at Knicknack's feet. "Slow down, why don't you? You trying to finish it all in one go? God, I can't believe you screwed that shuffler out of that much inventory."

"Yeah, well. He didn't bat an eye about it, so I guess he's got plenty to spare," she said. To Charon's dismay, she turned to look at him again. "And that reminds me. What's your boss's deal, anyways? He really gets by selling chems to a bunch of walking corpses? Is that a solid business model? I guess if I had a face like yours and no expiration date, I'd be high all the time, too."

"You're _already _high all the time," Bug muttered.

"Not the point. And I'm talking to the zombie, not you." Knicknack rolled her shoulders and looked back at Charon. "Anyways. As I was saying. Your boss, he dope you up 24/7, is that it? Is that why you keep staring at me? You want a fix? If you're hoping I'll share, you can go fuck yourself."

"No." Charon said.

"No to what, dipshit?"

"Everything you have said."

Charon shifted against the ledge. His shotgun creaked in his hands. Any tighter, and he'd start to tear his own skin.

"You really aren't a talker," Knicknack said. "So what's your deal, anyways? That shuffler treats like you're some kind of dog. Is that what you are? A mute dog?"

Obvious bait, but Charon was long past the point of resisting it. He didn't have to take shit from a wasteland nobody. He looked Knicknack in the face and narrowed his eyes before he could stop himself.

"I am not a _dog_," he said. Only five words, but his tone was enough of a warning.

"_Fuck_, Knicknack," said Bug. "If you want him to stop glaring at you, maybe you should watch your mouth."

"Chill. He doesn't have anything going on upstairs, Buggie. I mean _look _at him."

Bug lingered on Charon for a moment, and wrinkled his nose.

"Yeah... maybe you're right. What's up with you, man? It's not chems, so what did it? Hit your head?"

Bug waved a hand in front of Charon's face. Charon grit his teeth. What was the point in fighting it? They were begging to get shot.

"Can't say more than two words at once," Bug mused. "Maybe all those rads did you in when you became became a shuffler. Yeah, you're halfway to feral, I bet..."

Knicknack jammed a playful elbow into Bug's side.

"See?" she laughed. "It's fun, right? Nothing. Na-da. Nobody home. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. Most guys would have punched me in the mouth by now."

With an exaggerated shudder, she giggled again.

"Really, why the fuck _haven't _you? It's downright creepy. And I don't mean just me. Why haven't you ripped that shuffler boss of yours a new one? You're huge, man, seriously. You're a goddamned giant. He treats you like a shit stain on his boot and you just take it. What's he got on you, huh?"

Charon wished she would stop looking at him. It only got worse, the longer she kept her eyes on him. She inspected him like he was a brahmin carcass, as if she were sizing up the best cuts and tallying how many caps she could sell them for.

"You follow orders, yeah?" she asked. "That's what he told me. You're a good listener. Do what you're told. Wouldn't shut up about it, actually. It was weird."

Charon tensed. She was going somewhere with this, and he didn't like it.

"I follow my employer's orders," he said. "_Not_ yours."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what the hell is up with him, huh? Does he kick your ass when you don't do what he says? God, he could hardly put a dent in you. I'd like to see him try, though. You look like you could take a punch."

"Physical violence invalidates the contract," he said.

"The _what?"_

Charon bit his tongue. This happened too often. As much as he hated speaking, it was an automatic response, one he could rarely hold back. Spouting the terms of his contract was as reflexive as a flinch. It was also the quickest way to get a stranger asking too many questions about things that weren't their business.

"I have no obligation to speak to you," he said. It was a half truth, at best. Obligation and compulsion went hand in hand.

Knicknack narrowed her eyes. Charon growled in response. She'd picked up on his tone, but she didn't seem to care.

"Nick, we got work to do," Bug said. He slapped her in the arm. "Stop pissing him off."

"No, no, no," she snapped. "Shut up for a minute. What did you just say? What _contract?"_

Charon clenched his jaw. The compulsion didn't come, but all she had to do was pick the right words and it would be back in a heartbeat.

"You don't want to share all of a sudden? Fine, I can put two and two together. So he's not allowed to lay into you. Why would you even listen to him, then? He pay you a lot?"

"I do not require payment."

He swallowed, hard. That time, it felt uncannily like vomiting. Knicknack leaned back, lounging against the wall. She was having too much fun.

"So he doesn't beat your ass, and he doesn't pay you," she said. "So what? You like it, then? What the fuck makes you listen to him?"

"I am obligated to listen."

"And what does he do when you don't?"

"_I am obligated to listen."_

Bug turned his head and rolled his eyes.

"Uh-huh. Sure. Do we look a crate shy of a load?" He looked at his partner. "Knicknack. Please. You pissed him off, and now he's fucking with you. That's how gullible you are. You're getting strung along by a shuffler with shit for brains. Can we get back to work? Please?"

Knicknack leaned in. She licked her lips.

"No, no. Just wait," she said. "Pay attention, Bug. This is exactly what I was telling you about."

"He's not a robot, Nick," Bug said. "Don't be fucking stupid. Slaves like this don't exist."

"Bull _shit_, they don't. We got one right here."

Charon clenched his teeth as her face lit up. He'd seen that deranged look once already, on their way to the roundabout, when she'd picked a shiny tin can out of the dirt.

"Jesus," she breathed. "Always thought it was wishful thinking, you know, with all these runaways we got on our hands. Too good to be true. But here you are. You're a walking goddamn campfire story."

"You are not making sense," Charon growled. "Explain."

"Aw, don't worry," she teased. "It's not your fault you don't have any brain cells left."

She patted a weapon that sat between her and Bug, a clunky aluminum box with a shoulder stock. He'd never seen a mesmetron in person, at least, not that he could remember. But Ahzrukhal had warned him about it the day before. He told Charon to stay out of it's way.

"They scrambled your brains," Knicknack said. She rapped her knuckles on the mesmetron for emphasis. "Mezzed 'em to shit. Fried 'em through your skull. You're nothing more than a pair of boots that can shoot a gun and take orders."

"Come on, Knicknack," said Bug. "Not this shit again. You mezz a guy more than three or four times and you'll blow his head off. There's no way you can make that shit permanent. It's just not possible."

"Shut up, Bug. You got a better explanation?"

"Yeah, actually. You're a fucking dumbass."

She spat on Bug's boot, then leaned in, towards Charon. Her voice got quiet.

"Bug doesn't know shit. You're a braindead slave, that's what. Man, I'm no prude, but that kinda shit ain't right. Slave collar, detonator, and a few good threats will do the trick just fine. That's the catch. If slaves aren't good and afraid, they misbehave. But a headfucked zombie like you's no fun. They fried your noggin and you're too _dumb _to get scared. And, hey, what if Bug's right? What happens, when whatever they did to you wears off?"

Bug shook his head in disbelief, but kept quiet. Charon glared at her. She was full of shit, but a part of him wanted her to keep talking. His curiosity and his murderous itch were clashing, head on. For now, his grip on his shotgun relaxed only slightly. He wanted to know why everything she said made the feeling in his stomach worse. He wanted something, a memory, _anything _to come back to the surface and prove her wrong. But all he got was the same shitty feeling.

"How long you been like _that?"_ Knicknack asked. "Corpsified, I mean. Did _they _do that to you, or did you just have a bad day?"

_They_. She kept saying _they_. Who the fuck were_ they?_ He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? Did he really believe the ravings of some strung-out slaver? She could barely string words together without twitching. She didn't know a damn thing.

"Well? Speak up. I'm sure there's a story there, zombie."

It hit him, then. He knew even less than she did. He couldn't answer her question, because he didn't have the slightest clue. He didn't want to admit it. Humoring her was a terrible idea, but he was stuck between wanting answers and wanting to get as far away from her as possible. It was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking. Knicknack watched him expectantly. She wasn't going to settle for silence, and he couldn't take her staring at him any longer.

"I do not remember," he said at last.

Her widening grin told him he should have kept quiet. Knicknack whistled through her teeth.

"Ho-lee shit," she laughed. "That settles it. Braindead, one-hundred percent..."

Charon shot her a murderous glare. Knicknack leaned closer, undeterred.

"I bet that shuffler shelled out every cap he could scrape together to get a merc like you," she said. "Bet you don't even think your own thoughts. Man, you're a boring sonuvabitch, but if I-"

"Knicknack, for _god's_ sake," Bug moaned. "Your hard-on is showing. You don't really believe this shit, do you? The zombie's laying down the bait, and your dumb ass keeps taking it. So he doesn't get paid, and he doesn't get beat. He's a slave, obviously. An obedient one. So _what?_ You're so easy to-"

"I am not a_ slave," _Charon said. "Ahzrukhal is my employer."

Those words came out automatically, too. But they weren't Charon's. They were Ahzrukhal's, verbatim. He wasn't sure why he'd latched onto them, but despite everything, the statement rang true.

"Sure, man." Knicknack threw her hands up in the air. "Whatever you say. It's not like, my business or anything." She reached back and rattled her collection of slave collars. "'Cept that it is, literally, my business."

She giggled, prompting Bug to deliver a swift cuff upside her head. Knicknack turned and squinted through the scope again.

"Yeah, yeah, cool your jets," she muttered.

Charon scowled. He gripped his shotgun, his knuckles threatening to tear through the rotted skin on his hands.

"Aw, look at him," Bug said. "You're being fucked up. She didn't mean it. She's crazy, I promise."

"I meant it," Knicknack replied.

Charon's head hurt. It _really _hurt. That was new. For all the countless times Ahzrukhal put him in situations like this, the discomfort never got this far. It felt like someone had brained him with a baseball bat. He mashed his palm into his eye socket.

"Shut up, both of you," he said. "Please."

"Shit!" Knicknack laughed. "Finally something real out of you."

"Nickie, he's right. Just shut your damn mouth and spot."

"Alright, alright. Bite me."

Knicknack leaned back out the window. The pain in Charon's head was the last straw. There was no going back. Ahzrukhal's orders faded to no more than a faint suggestion, and staring at the back of Knicknack's head, Charon knew he had to kill her. Only his orders had ever felt so clear. His shotgun shook in his hands. He reached out, grabbed Knicknack by the collar of her jacket, and threw her backwards against the concrete.

"Hey, what the fuck-"

He shot her in the face. Point blank, and it was over. Knicknack's skull was not much more than a red smear. Satisfying, to be sure, but the urge to kill persisted. He looked at Bug. The slaver scrambled back, whipped a laser pistol from his thigh holster, and pointed it at Charon's head.

"_Jesus," _Bug stammered. The pistol rattled in his hand. "P-Put it down! Put the fucking gun down!"

Charon backed up and lowered his shotgun.

"What the _hell _are you thinking, you psychotic fuck?" Bug spat. "You just screwed us both over! Those raiders are gonna come crawling all over looking for us! You kill me, you're dead too, moron."

Charon drew in a breath. He couldn't stop now. He raised his shotgun again.

"W... Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bug said. "Look. I get it. Nick's an asshole. She had it coming. But I'm not stupid. Okay? I don't talk shit to people I work with."

"You are mistaken," Charon said plainly. "I do not care about that."

Charon pulled the trigger, and Bug ducked, rolling to the side just as a shell ripped into his leg.

"_J-Jesus! Fucking... Holy fuck,"_ Bug stared at his leg, mangled below the knee, and looked back up at Charon, eyes wide with pain. "Fuck, _fuck_... What the hell, man? What do you want, a fucking apology? What did I ever do to you, you thin-skinned twat?"

Charon hesitated. Bug didn't. His pistol flashed, and a red laser cut across Charon's arm. Charon staggered back, hissing, his skin bubbling instantly. Stupid mistake. The reason behind all of this didn't matter. There was _something _there, something he couldn't pin down, but that's how it always was. He could only trust his instincts, and his instincts told him the slavers had to die.

He took a step towards Bug. The slaver dropped his pistol and started to crawl, clawing at the concrete with shaking hands. Charon tracked him with the barrel of his shotgun. He had to finish it.

"I'm sorry, ok?" Bug pleaded without looking up, still crawling. "I'm fucking sorry, just... wait..."

The shotgun bucked in his hands. He plastered Bug's brains across the rubble, but it wasn't enough. He grit his teeth. He shot the merc once, twice, three times. Bug's torso turned to a pulp. Slowly, his bloodlust faded, replaced by a cold sweat. It didn't make sense. He didn't do anything wrong, he was sure of it. There was nothing in his orders that said he couldn't kill them. They _deserved _to die.

He glanced over the ledge, and a chill ran up his spine. The raiders scattered. He heard them down below, scrambling through the ruins and whooping like maniacs. Charon cursed under his breath and stared at Bug's corpse, rueful. The slaver was right. He'd lost the element of surprise. The twisting in his stomach worsened, and he knew it wasn't the sight of the raiders that brought it on. There were worse things than being maimed, and something told him failing Ahzrukhal a second time was one of them.

He didn't know from experience. He'd never fucked up a mission this badly, not once.

There was a first time time for everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Charon stared at the double doors in front of him and took a gulp of mildewy air. His heart hadn't stopped pounding since he fled Dupont Circle, and after returning to Underworld, it raced even faster. He glanced at the sign by the door, a crooked museum placard that advertised the bar inside. The Ninth Circle. His stomach wormed its way into his throat. He'd never come back here with this much to explain, and that fact kept him frozen where he stood.

He forced himself to take a step towards the entry, then another, cringing as his boots stuck to the tile. He was covered in blood. Added to the splattered gore from the slavers were the skull fragments of a few unlucky raiders, a mixture that plastered him head to toe. He pushed open the door, ignoring the red handprints he left behind. An uncomfortably warm breeze greeted him. It reeked of booze.

The bar was crowded. Typical for this hour. Lit by flickering torchlight, ghouls slumped in every corner, most not bothering to hide their inhalers or the needles that stuck from their arms. Charon stepped between a row of tables, met with uneasy stares. He shrugged it off. It wasn't unusual for him to come back here a bloody mess. He made his way to the back corner of the bar, looked a few ghouls in the face, and the staring stopped.

Charon unclipped his shotgun, set it against the wall, and glanced across the bar. His employer was easy to spot - Ahzrukhal was the only ghoul in a suit, though covered in the same layer of filth as everyone else. As usual, he stood in the far corner, behind the greasy bar top.

Charon tensed as Ahzrukhal straightened and looked over his shoulder. Ahzrukhal narrowed his eyes and ambled across the bar, pausing a few feet away to lean against a nearby table.

"You're back early," he wheezed.

Charon held his breath, his hands flexing, already restless and itching without the shotgun in their grip. That wasn't a good sign. He took a step back, flinching as he smacked against the wall.

Ahzrukhal lit a cigarette and pulled a comb from his breast pocket, slicking back what was left of his hair strand by oily strand. A constant stream of smoke seeped out through the holes in his cheeks, and Charon cringed. The longer the silence dragged on, the longer he had to sit with it. The feeling from earlier, that urge to kill, came surging back now that he was face to face with his employer.

Something had gone horribly wrong. No matter the torment he suffered, no matter how many sick games his employer played - this feeling never made it back to the Ninth Circle. Charon knew it was bad - _very_ bad - but he couldn't help but bask in it. Shooting him would be so damn easy. The ghoul was half his size, decades his senior. He was fragile, could hardly breathe for all the cigarettes he smoked. Knicknack was right about one thing, at least. He couldn't lay a finger on Charon if he tried. As if to drive the point home, Ahzrukhal burned right through his first cigarette, paused for a few phlegmy coughs, and lit another one.

"I trust everything's been taken care of?" he said at last.

He held the cigarette in his teeth and picked at something stuck in his comb, not bothering to look up.

Charon couldn't speak. Hearing Ahzrukhal's voice made his predicament far worse. Ahzrukhal furrowed his brow and stood, closing in. Charon's fingers grazed the stock of his shotgun. The closer Ahzrukhal got, the more he wanted to reach for it.

"Oh? I'm sure you heard me." Ahzrukhal's words dripped from his mouth. "Let's not go through this again."

Charon bit his tongue. Some of the ghouls nearby resumed staring, eager for entertainment.

"Hm. I see you've been shot," Ahzrukhal noted. His eyes wandered from Charon's burned arm to his bloodied equipment. "Any other... _improvisations_ that you'd care to tell me about?"

"The slavers..." Charon began. "Both dead."

Ahzrukhal's eyes widened.

"And how did that happen?"

"Sniper."

Charon swallowed dryly. A wave of dizziness washed over him as Ahzrukhal took a slow drag on his cigarette. The feeling was familiar - the usual punishment for lying. He could tolerate it now, but he couldn't keep this up for long.

"Mmm. That's a shame," Ahzrukhal said. "But I already paid them. It's money lost either way. I'm interested in money _gained_. The wastelanders. You secured them."

"Not... Exactly."

Ahzrukhal's eyes narrowed to slits. Charon's head spun, and he started to feel sick. He never did like drinking, because it all too often reminded him of this.

"There were too many... raiders... It was... It..."

His throat seized up. He'd run out of time.

_"I asked you a simple question," _Ahzrukhal snapped. "My god. It's like pulling teeth. You had the nerve to come back here once already without finishing the job. The least you could do is give me a straight answer."

"I am... attempting to do that."

"Are you, now? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were lying to me."

"I cannot lie to you."

"Of course not. You know better than that." His voice quieted as he forced it through clenched teeth. "You'd best unfuck yourself, Charon. Or you'll be very, very sorry."

"Physical violence-"

"Yes, I'm well aware. But you don't seem to understand the situation you're in. Push your luck, and I'll go ahead and _cancel_ our contract."

Ahzrukhal flicked a chunk of glowing ash at Charon's face. It stung, but Charon didn't so much as blink. He wouldn't give Ahzrukhal the satisfaction. Death threats were cheap, and Ahzrukhal would never follow through.

"You're awfully quiet," Ahzrukhal said. "You understand what I meant by that, don't you?"

Charon understood perfectly, but he wouldn't say it. As expected, the longer he kept his jaw clenched, the faster his head spun. Charon took a steadying breath and forced himself to respond.

"Yes," he said. "I understand."

The spinning waned, but his stomach still flipped as Ahzrukhal leaned in close. The ghoul reeked. His filthy oversize suit, the cheap cologne that didn't quite cover the smell of decay - it was all too much. Charon wanted to kill him, he wanted it more than he'd wanted anything in his entire life.

"I'm beginning to doubt it." Ahzrukhal drew in a deep, wheezing inhale. "Let's be clear, shall we? I asked a few simple things of you. Go to Dupont. Kill the raiders. You could have stuck your thumb in your ass and let the slavers do the rest. Which part of that was too hard for you? _Where are the wastelanders? Give me a straight answer."_

He had to say something. Drawing this out wasn't a good idea.

"The raiders..." he began. He grimaced, then forced himself to spit out the rest. "The raiders still have them."

"That's certainly a first..." Ahzrukhal said. "You're full of surprises today, aren't you? What makes you think you can come back here without finishing a job?"

Ahzrukhal stepped back. A predatory look came into his eyes, the same look he got when he picked and prodded at his customers. Charon cringed. Any other day, he could suffer through this. But not now. Not like this. It wasn't going to end well.

"I..." he began.

Ahzrukhal cleared his throat.

"That was a _hypothetical_. I didn't tell you to speak, so don't start grunting an excuse - just shut your mouth and listen. You think your wellbeing matters more to me than my reputation? I make deals with people. And I make it _abundantly_ clear what happens when deals fall apart, because I believe - no, I _know_ \- that no matter how much of a mute idiot you are, you'll follow through. There's no cost-benefit-fucking-analysis here, Charon. There's my orders. That's _it_."

Ahzrukhal puffed himself up, and Charon fought the urge to shrink back. He wasn't too proud to admit it. He was afraid, but he was more afraid of himself than anything. He'd run up against an inviolable tenet of his employment, one he'd never dared to challenge. And the slavers' blood coated his hands, still tacky to the touch, a reminder of how quickly things went wrong.

"Do you know how many caps they owed me?" Ahzrukhal pulled a small pocketbook from the breast of his suit, licked his thumb and flipped through the yellowed pages. "You _must_ have forgotten. But we're accustomed to that, aren't we?"

Ahzrukhal ran his finger along the page, then looked up, pausing to blow a stream of smoke directly into Charon's eyes. Charon screwed them shut. He needed to keep it together. He _had_ to. He knew killing Ahzrukhal was unforgivable, and the reason behind it didn't matter. Charon's world wasn't built on reason. It was built on rules.

"It was little over seven thousand," Ahzrukhal said at last. He snapped the book shut. "Including interest."

He narrowed his eyes and looked Charon up and down.

"You know... There's something different about you today. You've slipped up before, but this is unprecedented. Maybe you need a little explanation as to why this errand matters to both of us... And why I don't give a shit about raiders playing target practice with your backup."

He snuffed his cigarette in an ashtray and promptly lit another, pulling up a chair. Charon grit his teeth. Ahzrukhal was settling in for a speech. He loved to hear his own voice, especially when there were customers around to listen. Sure enough, a few ghouls nearby leaned in on their elbows, ready for a show.

"Seven thousand caps, Charon. I take that debt very seriously. But it's not the caps I'm concerned about. It's broken promises."

Charon bit his tongue. The insult didn't escape him. A lie or two made his head spin, but Ahzrukhal could whip up a farce with no consequence at all.

"I keep my word..." Ahzrukhal said. "And I expect others to do the same. I shouldn't have to explain this. You already know. It's somewhere in that empty head of yours. You and I, our whole arrangement is based off of integrity."

The knot in Charon's stomach returned with a vengeance. Ahzrukhal was doing it again - toying with him, picking at threads but never saying enough to bring back a real memory.

"Integrity holds up the business world," Ahzrukhal said. "The wastelanders I sent you after are in sore need of a reminder. You're going to finish the job, Charon. You're going to snap collars on both of those sons of bitches and hold them accountable. It's the honorable thing to do."

Charon crossed his arms and dug his nails into his skin.

"That was not what you asked of me before."

"Oh? Well we didn't have dead slavers on our hands _before_, now did we? You have _two_ jobs to do now."

"I was ordered to retrieve debt. I was _not_ ordered to-"

"Oh, that's adorable. You're talking back. This job striking a nerve with you, is it? I thought it might. I'm interested, Charon. What about this errand makes you think you have a choice?"

Charon growled. It wasn't just the slavers. This whole job was bait, the kind Charon couldn't resist taking, and only Ahzrukhal knew the real reason why. That was just part of the game.

"This is... unnecessary. I will acquire the caps. I have always-"

"Please, remind me. When did _your_ opinion matter? You're not here to tell me how you feel about it. You're here to follow through. If you can't do that, then what good _are_ you?"

Ahzrukhal looked up, a mirthless expression pinching on his face. He leaned back in his chair and took a long drag on his cigarette. Charon knew he'd lost. He _always_ lost. Ahzrukhal had every advantage, but Charon had to fight him anyway. Anything less would be pathetic. He steadied himself as Ahzrukhal rose to his feet.

"If you don't do this, you're robbing them of their chance to make things right," Ahzrukhal said. "It's important to pay off debts. It's a mark of an honest man. Take, _you_, for example." Ahzrukhal's mouth twisted up at the sides. "You're paying your debt to _me_. Or you would be, if you would do what I asked of you. Every day, every errand, every cent you earn me. It's all in your favor, Charon."

"You are incorrect," Charon blurted. "Payment is not part of the contract."

For once, Charon welcomed the verbal knee-jerk. The rules in his head were the only thing he knew for certain, and faced with them, Ahzrukhal's lies couldn't hold up.

"You'll never stop with that, will you?" Ahzrukhal said.

He wasn't unnerved in the slightest, in fact, his bleary eyes pinched with amusement. Charon's skin crawled. Maybe his contract _wasn't_ infallible. Or maybe, as with everything else, Ahzrukhal had twisted it to his own ends.

"I suppose you _are_ right," Ahzrukhal conceded. "Payment isn't a part of this. But payment and working off debt are two different things, aren't they? Money, time, misery. However you cash it in, redemption isn't free."

Charon drew in a breath. Ahzrukhal liked to cycle through the same tired material, but _this_ was a new bit. Despite his bad memory, Charon was sure he hadn't heard it before. Feelings were one thing that really stuck with him, and he'd never felt this awful. All the blood rushed to his face, and it felt like he'd been socked in the stomach, hard.

"Oh my," Ahzrukhal said. "Don't look like that. I see there's obviously some wheels turning in in that big dumb head of yours. Go on. If you have something to say to me, then say it."

"I do not believe you," Charon said. The tremor in his voice was less than convincing. "You have never mentioned this before."

"Well it's _your_ memory over mine, isn't it? I wouldn't lie to you, anyways. _Integrity_, remember?"

Charon clenched his fists. He never questioned how he ended up doing Ahzrukhal's dirty work. He'd been unhappy for as long he could remember, but that was nothing special. That could be said of any ghoul in Underworld. And just like any ghoul, Charon knew that accepting misery was easier than fighting it. Yet, the way Charon felt now, Ahzrukhal may as well have taken a torch to his contract. Ahzrukhal liked to read it aloud to taunt him, at least, the parts that could be read at all. That tattered piece of paper said nothing about an expiration date. Charon rarely felt this desperate, this _hopeful_. He knew he'd walked headfirst into a trap. This had to be a lie, but he couldn't help himself. If Ahzrukhal was telling the truth, it meant this wasn't forever. He couldn't let that go.

"Nothing else to say?" Ahzrukhal asked.. "Good. None of this is up for debate. So go back tomorrow and finish the job. _That's an order."  
_  
"Without backup I cannot..." Charon bit his tongue, but couldn't keep it under control. His temples throbbed. He rarely talked back, rarely defied an order. He hated the feeling that came afterwards, but it was too late. He'd already crossed that line, and backpedaling wouldn't save him now. "I will not..." He inhaled sharply. The world started to spin again, faster than before.

"That's a lot of negatives for someone in your position. I'm sure I've misheard." Ahzrukhal's words dripped from his mouth. "Speak carefully, and _do_ enunciate, Charon."

"I will... not..." His vision started to blur. His knees were seconds away from giving out beneath him.

_"Speak up."  
_  
Charon squeezed his eyes shut. Just like before, the longer he kept silent, the worse it got. The spinning picked up, and he pressed himself into the wall, digging his fingers into the cracks. He gasped, only to choke on a cloud of cigarette smoke. Ahzrukhal was too close, just inches from his face.

"Fascinating," Ahzrukhal remarked. "You're fighting this with everything you have, aren't you? You've never taken it this far."

Charon's grasping fingers knocked against his shotgun, then twitched around it. That was a mistake. The spinning doubled, tripled in speed.

"You're making a very bad decision," Ahzrukhal said quietly.

The floor tilted beneath Charon's feet. His head pounded, each throb followed by pulsating rings of bright blue speckles. This was uncharted territory, miles past the limits of his contract. He couldn't see, and where his hand met his shotgun, a spike of pain ran through his arm. He just needed to pick it up. Just a few quick motions, but it was too much. Pain couldn't kill. Could it? Did it even matter? If he could get one shot in, just _one...  
_  
"Disappointing," Ahzrukhal muttered. Ahzrukhal reached out with his shoe and kicked the shotgun aside. It lay just inches from Charon's feet, but he may as well have thrown it across the room. Ahzrukhal still stared at him, taking a deliberate drag from his cigarette.

"Well? I'm still waiting, Charon."

He wasn't touching the gun. Why wasn't it stopping? The pain only got worse. All he could see was blue, neverending rings of blue. He hated that color, almost as much as he hated Ahzrukhal, and he couldn't fathom why.

"Something is... wrong," Charon choked.

"Damn right. You tried to pull that shotgun on me, and you won't answer my question."

He took another drag, letting it seep from the rotted holes in his face.

"Don't misinterpret. This isn't optional. You're going to snap slave collars on them, or die trying. But I want to hear you say it. Right now. _Are you going to take care of it?"  
_  
Charon's knees buckled. The spinning was too much. The blue light burned, getting brighter by the second. He had to do _something_, and do it fast.

"Y... Yes," Charon gasped. "I will take care of it."

_"And when will you get it done?"  
_  
The spinning began to slow.

"Tomorrow." Charon choked. He chose his words as carefully as he could. "_Tomorrow_. As you command."

The world went still, the ground sturdy beneath his feet. Charon pried his fingers from the cracks in the wall. The shotgun still lingered at the edge of his vision. He pushed the thought down, forced himself to ignore it. The bright blue rings pulsed once, twice, then disappeared, skittering away into the corners of his eyes.

"Good, Charon. _Good_." Ahzrukhal smirked. "I know you wouldn't lie to me. You aren't that stupid."

His chest heaved beneath his combat armor. Ahzrukhal rubbed his cigarette into Charon's breastplate. The butt fell to the ground and he lit another.

"It's heartbreaking, really," he said wistfully. "You used to be so well-behaved. Not that you'd remember... Maybe back then you still had an inkling of what this all means for you. But I won't dig up old bones."

Something new flashed in Ahzrukhal's eyes. Charon couldn't place it. Discomfort, maybe. Or was it fear? Ahzrukhal's shoulders scrunched higher than usual, and he sucked at his cigarette with frantic zeal.

"You'll make things right, whether or not you believe me." Ahzrukhal's voice took on a nervous bite. "Nothing's changed between us. I'm your employer, and you listen to me. End of story."

With a roll of his shoulders, Ahzrukhal flicked some ash in Charon's direction.

"I've gotten used to our... _arrangement_. But it's not in my business model to employ fuck-ups." He backed away, leaving a cloud of smoke in his wake. "You know, I'm glad we had this little talk. Watch the bar today, then go. I better not see you here tomorrow morning. I expect you to be well on your way."


	3. Chapter 3

Charon stepped from Dupont Circle Station and shoved aside the metal grating, squinting against the sun. Picking his way through the metro tunnels took longer than he'd hoped. It was late evening, and the concrete rippled with a dry heat that hit him like a wall. He wasn't happy about it, but anything was better than the stale air of the Ninth Circle.

He picked his way up the station steps, his back to the far wall, his shotgun gripped at the ready. Ahzrukhal's orders still looped in his head, louder than he'd ever heard them before. Charon knew consequences when he felt them. The thoughts were borderline deafening, a reminder that he'd taken things too far. The failsafe in his head had kicked into overdrive, and the stink of Ahzrukhal's cigarette smoke clung to him, reminding him every step of the way. Disobedience, however small, wasn't an option.

It didn't matter that stepping into a raider hive was the last thing Charon wanted to do. The prospect of being flayed alive threatened to drag him back into the metro, but Ahzrukhal's orders were a solid substitute for bravery. As long as Charon moved forward, he felt normal. Any hesitation, and his head threatened to spin. He'd never had such a hair trigger for mental punishment. Halfway through the metro, he'd pondered turning back, but after a few minutes of dry heaves and clutching at a guard rail, he learned why that was a mistake. Even letting his mind wander set it off. At least that was a blessing in disguise. Thinking was too tempting, and all it brought with it was uncertainty. The slavers, the urge to kill, Ahzrukhal's mind games, those damn blue rings. It was a puzzle too agonizing to put together, and there were so many pieces. Finding truth in any of it was impossible.

He leaned out from the stairwell, choosing to focus on his mission instead. Connecticut Avenue stretched out ahead, a dusty strip covered in rubble that led straight to the center of Dupont Circle. He caught a glimpse of the fountain at the roundabout's center, along with the barricade that stretched around it. The camp seemed much more imposing now that he had to breach it alone. Charon squinted up, watching the tops of the buildings. Someone had fired on him the other day, right at the metro entrance. Sniper shot. No sign of them now. Steeling himself, he kept to a strip of shadow and darted across the street into the cover of a gutted building. The floors had busted from the ceiling all the way to the ground, leaving only crumbling concrete shelves and rickety catwalks of two-by-fours. He held his breath and made his way around the back.

A sun-bleached staircase led up to the first catwalk. It was littered with landmines. He disarmed them as he went, left them in place, and picked his way up to the maze of boards on the top floor. He stepped from the staircase, then immediately darted back, choking down a curse. A raider crouched against the opposite ledge. She pressed her eye against the scope of a sniper rifle, aimed the center of the Circle.

Charon peeked around the corner. All that separated them was a single straight catwalk. The raider wasn't armored, save for a few useless leather straps and a ripped tac vest. Her buzzed head was bare, unprotected by the helmet she'd dropped at her feet. At least that made things easier. He slung his shotgun over his back and pulled a trench knife out of his leg holster. The raider stirred, but didn't pull away from the scope, deepening her squat to settle in.

"C'mon, Misty..." she muttered, licking her lips. "I know you hate it when I stare at your tits. But I got a new toy... Super zoom, heh... You gotta turn around..."

Charon took his first step onto the catwalk. It creaked instantly. The raider twitched.

"God _dammit,"_ she breathed.

He froze. The raider fumbled with her rifle, sending the barrell skittering across the ledge.

"Don't be a coy bitch, Misty. The rear view's great, but I need some love. Please?"

Exhaling as quietly as he could, Charon kept moving. He was halfway across when she shifted again, dropping her ass in the dirt.

"No, no, no, don't go..." she whined under her breath. "You're almost there. Just a little bit more, you're almost..."

He was almost within arm's reach. Three more steps, barely.

"Yes! There it is. The best rack on this side of the Potomac. God, this scope is so _good!"_ She reached out and stroked the barrel. "Send some more slavers, you dillweeds, the loot is-"

He clapped his hand over her mouth. Before she had a chance to struggle, he ripped the knife across her throat and dropped her on the ground. She sputtered for a few seconds, then went quiet.

He looked around. She'd fashioned a decent excuse for a sniper roost. A hoard of snacks and a radio were tossed in the corner next to a sleeping mat. Half of a once-fancy wood desk was shoved against the wall, an improvised shelf for all sorts of chems and booze. By the ledge, a sniper rifle rested on a tripod, next to a neglected BB gun and a pair of binoculars. The rifle looked practically new aside from a small sprayed-on stencil on the body. _Paradise Falls._ As expected. She'd ripped it off his backup.

Charon knelt down to peer through the scope. The sniper had it honed in on the camp inside the barricade, centered on another raider with a green mohawk. 'Misty', he guessed. She slouched against a sliver of shade beneath the fountain, scowling at the sun, the slavers' mesmetron propped between her legs. Around her, a few other sweaty raiders slumped on the ground. He zoomed out and nudged the scope upwards. A huge aluminum sign nailed to the fountain came into focus. It wasn't there the night before. In bright blue spray paint, it spelled out an amusing message.

_EAT SHIT, ROACH FUCKERS_

Charon smirked, despite himself. Below, what remained of Bug and Knicknack hung from a series of chains. A welcome sight. Their limbs had been ripped off and turned into pincushions for rusty nails. Nailed to the other side of the fountain and painted with a lopsided smiley face, another sign cheerfully accompanied the first.

_SLAVERS GO HOME!_

He zoomed out, surveying the rest of the roundabout. As the sun slipped below the buildings, it left the ruins in shadow. The raiders began to perk up, crawling out from beneath aluminum lean-to's and kicking aside lawn chairs. Someone cranked up a radio. A few gathered around a table to suck at jet inhalers and stick themselves with psycho. Things got rowdy, fast.

Charon pulled back from the scope and checked the magazine. There weren't many rounds left. With a scowl he glanced back at the roost. A stack of .32 caliber boxes sat by the bed, but no signs of sniper rounds anywhere. The desk to his left had a few drawers. It was worth a shot. He made his way over.

The wall over the desk was plastered with old pin-ups ripped from a magazine. The top few drawers were much of the same - ripped up erotica and a few rotted pages of a swimsuit calendar. Charon tossed it all aside. The last drawer sported a rusty padlock. Promising. He bashed it off with his shotgun. He moved aside rolls of mildewy cash and a few more portraits of scantily dressed women that were in notably better condition than the rest. At the bottom, one last pinup, with a green mohawk crudely scrawled on top of her head. Beneath her was a metal tin. Charon pried it open. No ammo. Only a few ancient-looking cigars. Useless.

He rose to his feet when a smell seeped up from the drawer. Vanilla tobacco, weak and dusty. An image flickered in his brain, jarring, like a smack in the face. It was too fast to recognize, but the smell... He definitely knew that smell. Thinking about it too hard made him shudder. Ahzrukhal's mind games were one thing, but _this_ was far too close to a real memory.

Right on cue, the spinning set in. Charon shook his head and reached down, tucking a cigar into his pocket, and the feeling waned. Point taken. Whatever the fuck this was, he didn't have time for it right now.

He rifled around in his pack and pulled out a few mines and a mag of shotgun ammo. He laid the mines along Connecticut Avenue, back to the staircase leading to the catwalk. As he made his way up the stairs, he armed the sniper's mines for good measure. He plunked himself down where she'd sat and waited, shotgun in his lap and magazines at his side. The hours passed like that, staring into the dark, half dozing to the music and shouts. Occasionally, the smell of the cigar leaked from his pocket. It dredged up a few uneasy feelings, but nothing like the jolt from before. He chose to ignore it.

Dawn came, and gradually, the party in the circle died down. Charon returned to the scope. Many of the raiders had passed out, lying in half-clothed piles on the ground. A few slumped over tables and lawn chairs. Only four were awake in the Circle, including the mohawked raider. She picked at her teeth with a nail, reclining against the fountain by a pile of pilfered loot, the slavers' mesmetron propped on her leg.

There was a light in the rubble opposite his roost. On a ledge at the other side of the Circle, three raiders surveyed the camp, armed with beat up hunting rifles. Charon took aim. Two shots rang out, two clean kills, and he missed the third. They screamed few angry curses before he capped them. At the sound of his rifle, the raiders below jolted awake, scrambling, grabbing guns and scrabbling for clips.

At least one of them down below saw his muzzle flash. He was counting on it. He ditched the rifle, grabbed his shotgun and pack, and slipped onto a catwalk to the adjacent building. Leaping from the ledge to the ground floor, he waited. Twenty seconds, thirty... The landmines on Connecticut went off, one after the other, belching dust into the air. A few raiders sprinted by just ten feet to his left. Blinded by dust, they missed him completely. Charon slipped out into the street. He couldn't see the raider's camp through the dust, but he could hear it. The shouts behind the barricade got louder with every step. In no time at all he pushed up against the outer rim, listening through a gap in two dented sheets of aluminum.

"What the fuck is happening?" howled a raider. "Why didn't we get a warning? Didn't we give that bitch posted at Connecticut a sniper rifle? The scope on that thing was-"

"_It doesn't matter,"_ said another. "We're getting fucked now. I ain't gonna just lay here and bite the pillow. How many of them? Did you see? Shit! Didn't _any_ of you blind assholes get a visual?"

Charon reached into his pack and pulled out two grenades. He chucked them over the barricade. After the blast, a promising silence. He slipped inside.

The ground was littered with bodies. A lone raider stood right at the entrance. They fired at the sight of him. Bullets peppered the dirt, and Charon ducked just as another raider skidded out from cover and took the brunt of friendly fire. They went slack and smacked the ground. Another raider stumbled around a pile of sandbags, shirtless, pants sliding down her ass. She gripped a nail board and squinted against the dust. Another spray of bullets rained down right next to her feet.

"_Stop!_ Stop shooting, damn it!" she screamed. She leapt back and looked right at Charon. "Oh _shit._ I got one! He's right over-"

Charon shot her in the face. Finally, the discomfort from earlier started to wear off. This was going better than expected. He was in control, in his element. He was following orders. Another pair of raiders skidded around the barricade. His shotgun bucked once, twice. A raider fell face first into the dirt. The other balked with a snarl.

"You like that, you bastard?" Charon jeered. He had an axe to grind. Coming back here was the last thing he wanted to do. Still, turning raiders into swiss cheese made it easy to forget how most everything else in his life had taken a turn for the worse.

The remaining raider bared his yellow teeth and hoisted the dented powerfist strapped to his arm.

"You fight like old people fuck!" he howled. "I'm gonna beat your ass, zombie!"

"Yeah?" Charon laughed. "You want some of this?"

He blew the raider's head off before they could twitch a single muscle, and for a moment, the roundabout went quiet. Charon walked towards the center, passing by a chain-link cage. The captive wastelanders startled at the sight of him. One half-yelped, silenced by the other. He hardly gave them a glance, slipping up the steps toward the fountain.

The dust in the air was thick. A blue light passed through it, lighting up the clouds. Charon ducked behind a pile of rubble and watched. The light bloomed brighter, until the front of a humming mesmetron emerged from the dust. Misty clutched it close to her, a deranged smile on her face. Another skinny raider with a rifle slinked close behind her.

"Boss," he hissed. "We should just ditch this joint. It's not worth it. We haven't even gotten a count. Who knows how many they sent, if they-"

"Shut _up,"_ she barked. She cleared her throat. Her voice rang out through the camp, a shrill rallying cry. "I won't stand for this shit," she screamed. "If slavers can't take a little competition, that's _their_ problem. They'll regret coming here. You all work for me, so don't you fuckers forget it. Any of you run off, I'll find you."

She looked directly at Charon's pile of rubble and sneered victoriously, hoisting the mesmetron against her shoulder. He ducked and readied his shotgun, listening as she clicked her tongue.

"Oh? Don't be shy. Here, kitty kitty... C'mere and let Misty spray your brains on the pavement. God, do I live for that..."

He fired over the rubble. The male raider jumped back.

"H-Holy fuck, is that a ghoul!?"

Charon fell back a few feet, ducking behind a long strip of sandbags. Unfazed, Misty howled with delight.

"Perfect! I was starting to get bored... Here we go! It's a corpse hunt, now!"

He waited, then darted to the right, letting her catch another glimpse of him. She took the bait, screeching with laughter.

"Take the pain, motherfucker!"

She blasted the mesmetron at him. Circles of blue light burst from it. She staggered with the recoil, and he ducked. The second the ray passed over him, he threw his shotgun over the rubble and pumped her full of lead.

He stopped to watch as she hit the ground. Stupid mistake. The raider behind her fired, burying a bullet in Charon's shoulder plate. Charon hurtled backwards. Before he could pull himself to cover, they fired again. It hit right in the chest. His breastplate collapsed inwards, crushing his ribs and knocking the breath from his lungs. He steadied his shotgun and fired. Another miss. The raider bolted, and he lined up the shot again. This time, it jammed.

"_Fuck!"_ he choked.

The raider was gone. Charon jostled his shotgun, then threw it aside. He didn't have time to fix it. He staggered to his feet, snatched up the nearby mesmetron, and dragged it back to cover. Just in time. The raider sprinted back around the corner. He had backup now, a twiggy woman with a beat-up .44 magnum. Charon fumbled with the mesmetron. He didn't have a single fucking clue how to use it. It was clumsy, front-heavy, hard to lift. It looked like a toaster.

Too late. The raiders closed in. He pointed the business end at them and crawled backwards, frantically running his hands over the front, feeling for any switch or button. They both grinned, practically drooling at the sight of him.

"Hey," the skinny one laughed. She stalked closer. "How do you kill a zombie anyways?"

"Gotta shoot him in the head," said the other. "Maybe twice to be sure!"

They both snickered, vibrating with glee. Charon tensed.

"Aww," one crooned. "Ghoulie's shaking. Don't worry. We won't hurt you... Much."

Charon scooted back, his vision blurred. He squinted as bright blue speckles crept in from all sides.

"_God dammit,"_ he croaked.

Why now? Why was this happening again? What did he do wrong? He struggled to catch his breath, his breastplate was crushing him. He ripped at it blindly, clutching the mesmetron, when he remembered. He remembered _something._

The mesmetron in his hands. A smoothskin, in a white coat, moving closer. Too close.

"_Put it down," the man urged. "We won't hurt you. Just put it down."_

_He didn't believe them. He'd counted at least four guards with glowing plasma rifles pointed at his face. The mesmetron was heavy, too heavy for a kid. It was practically as big as his torso. He hid behind it, shivering._

"_Get away from me," he squeaked._

_He struggled to hold it up. It bobbed and weaved in his hands. The man listened, for a moment, and backed away to look at the guards behind him._

"_Subject 03 remains non-compliant," he said. "Shoot to immobilize. Do not kill him."_

_His small hands crawled all over the weapon until he found the buttons on the side. He'd seen them press the right ones before. The one at the front. Bingo. The mesmetron vibrated, glowed, heated up._

"_Subject 03. Last warning. Put it down!"_

_Next button. Trigger. The blast knocked him back with a shockwave of blue rings. Then, a mist of blood._

"Oh _shit!_ You fuckin' mulched him!"

Charon snapped back to reality. The raider's headless body twitched, skull splattered against his companion. The remaining raider shrieked and scrambled back. Not quick enough. Charon's finger was already on the button. Another pulse of blue shot right at her skull, and the raider stopped in her tracks. Her head rolled back and forth on her shoulders, still very much intact.

"_Whoa..."_ she slurred. _"Everything's spinning... What's... Going on...?"_

Charon sat in the dirt, dazed. That was a memory. A real memory, something from before Ahzrukhal. Remembering hurt like hell. It felt like he had a railway spike in his eye socket.

"_Ugh... Who are you again...?"_

Charon tossed the mesmetron aside. He tugged at his armor straps and ripped off the breastplate that choked his torso. He needed to pull it together. He wasn't about to lose focus and get killed. He stumbled to his feet. The raider staggered a bit, but stayed put. Charon pried the revolver from her hands and shot her in the chest. She collapsed, burbled for a moment, then went silent.

"Teach you to mess with me," he muttered.

Charon dropped the gun and kicked her body aside. He was sick of raiders. The chemical smell of their sweat, their stupid costumes, the scabs on their arms, all of it. It wasn't fun anymore, and the shooting pain in his head wasn't going away. Nearby, a chainlink fence rattled, and he cringed, mashing his palm into one of his eye sockets. Behind him, one of the prisoners fumbled with the padlock on the enclosure, jamming a nail in it over and over in an attempt to break it open. Charon stalked over, grabbed a rifle from a dead raider, and pointed the it at the cage.

"Be quiet," he said.

They scrambled back. He stood for a minute, listening. The roundabout had gone silent, for good this time. He looked towards the center. The fountain was just a few feet away, and under it, beneath the dangling corpses of the slavers, was the pile of their equipment. He stalked over and snatched the pack with the collars on it, passing Misty's body on the way. Sure enough, a key ring hung from her belt loop. Charon reached down and ripped it off. He set to work on the padlock as the two wastelanders plastered themselves against the furthest corner of the cage.

"P-P-Please," one of them stammered. "What do you want? Caps? Chems? Anything, we can make it happen somehow, just please-"

Charon raised the rifle, and the wastelander's mouth snapped shut. He opened the cage with one hand and gestured with the weapon in the other, prodding them until they stood where he wanted. One at a time he fiddled with the collars, pulling them from the pack and snapping them on their necks. The collars lit up with a series of shrill beeps the moment they locked shut. Scowling at the sound, he walked to the entrance and shoved the cage door aside. He felt like throwing up.

"Paradise Falls," he said. "Start walking. Or it will detonate."

They didn't stop to question it. Charon kicked the fencing, rattling the whole cage and sending the wastelanders running. He walked back to the sandbags and picked up his busted shotgun. On his way out, he paused under the hanging slavers, admired the raiders' handiwork, and spit on the ground.

"This was _your_ fault," he muttered. He knew it wasn't that simple. The dizzy spells, the memories, all of it - the slavers were only the beginning. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something he needed to know. Something behind Ahzrukhal's lies, behind that unnerving memory. This wasn't just passing discomfort. Something about his employment was deeply wrong, and it had everything to do with the slavers he'd killed.

He turned and headed through the barricade towards Connecticut Avenue. Halfway down the street, his eyes wandered to an alleyway between the gutted buildings. The wasteland stretched out, a never-ending strip of grey rock. The errand was done. He had to go back. He knew that things could only get worse from here, but running away was just as impossible as reaching for his shotgun when he needed it the most. Or was it?

The answer came quicker than he'd hoped. The ground dropped from beneath him, and he fell to his knees and drew in a breath. It was happening again, so much worse than before. He braced himself as the spinning started, placing both hands on the ground. From his pocket, the smell of the cigar leaked out again, and it was too much. For what little his headache had waned, it returned in full force, thrusting another spike of pain through his head.

The pain came with an image. Bright light. Painfully bright. There were four of them, surgical lamps, aimed right at his face.

_He was laying on his back, somewhere. His wrists were strapped down against a gurney, the belts pulled as tight as they could go. They weren't meant to hold a child. The light turned hazy with cigar smoke. It smelled sweet, like vanilla._

_With a clang, the room went dark, like someone had flipped a breaker. A blue light bloomed from a few feet away. It started at a pinpoint, then swelled into a stream of glowing rings. Pulse after pulse passed through his head. The room began to turn. He was spinning faster by the second, and he clung to the gurney for dear life. He'd forgotten where he was, if he even had an inkling in the first place._

"_Subject 03," said a voice. It was rough, inhuman, like someone dragging their boots through gravel. He didn't reply. For a moment, there was silence, nothing more aside from the sound of his own gasps._

"_Subject 03. Respond."_

_The voice was stern this time, but no louder. Another pulse of blue rippled across his vision. This time, the gurney dropped out from under him._

"_Your name is Subject 03," said the voice. "You will respond to that, and only that, without hesitation."_

"_No... No. I a-already have a-" His voice came out a strangled squeak. He was falling, plummeting downward._

"_Your name is Subject 03."_

_They were lying. He had a name. Why couldn't he remember his name?_

"_Response non-compliant. Your name is Subject 03. Repeat."_

_Blue light illuminated the room. The ceiling stretched away from him, his fall quickened. The rings got brighter._

"_Alright," he gasped. "My name is..."_

_Gravity kicked back in, and his breath flooded back into his lungs. He caught on quick. The only way to make it stop was to listen. He inhaled, the vanilla smoke seeping into his nose._

"_M-my name is... Subject 03." He gasped._

_He opened his eyes. He could see again, just barely, in the dark of the room. There was someone next to him, looming over the gurney, their face in shadow._

"_Subject 03. Respond."_

"_Y... yes."_

"_Good. Now for our usual exercise. Repeat to me. Condition one."_

_The blue glow swelled next to his head._

"_Please. Stop. Please. I don't want to do it again. Just.. Please let me go..."_

_The room flipped upside down. They took over his vision again, pulse after pulse of blue rings._

"_Get acquainted with that feeling. Put it to memory, Subject 03. It's what happens when you disobey."_

"_S-Stop..."_

"_I'll do no such thing. You know how this works. We'll continue until you comply."_

_His temples throbbed. Any more of this and something bad was going to happen. His head hurt so much that it seemed ready to explode._

"_Now. Repeat to me. Condition one."_

"Fuck."

Charon grimaced. He managed to pull himself out of it this time, and not a moment too soon. Blue rings were burned into his eyes, and his head felt ready to split in half. This was a hell of a punishment. He didn't want these memories, whatever they were. They didn't help him understand a single thing Ahzrukhal said to him. All it did was prove Knicknack right, which felt more disgusting than Charon had ever anticipated. They _had_ scrambled his brains, whoever they were. And this was what he had to show for it - a mind that kept him in line.

He staggered to his feet and dragged himself towards the metro tunnel, shuffling down the steps. He understood now - he'd never so much as think about running. He didn't need any more spinning to drive the point home. He should have known better than to try. He was supposed to follow orders - that's it. If he wanted this to end, if he wanted to pay off that debt Ahzrukhal dangled in front of him, he had to play by the rules. That is, if there even was a debt to begin with. It was idiotic, but Charon couldn't help but hope. The only way to know was to stick it out. Every order, every errand, every single miserable request. He'd follow them to the letter, just like before, just like he always had.


	4. Chapter 4

Nearly two weeks had passed since the job at Dupont Circle. Charon had been counting. Every day felt like an eternity, and that's because Ahzrukhal was ignoring him.

The last time they spoke was when he returned. Charon had every intention to reign himself in, but he didn't even get the chance to show contrition. He expected more mind games, more punishment, more lectures, maybe even a chance to turn the other cheek. But Ahzrukhal did something he'd never done before. He'd backed off entirely. The whole thing was strange. Either this was another game, or Ahzrukhal really _was_ afraid of him.

Charon suspected the latter. He'd never seen Ahzrukhal crack before, but something changed. There were no new orders. Not one. After chewing Charon out one last time, loud enough for all of Underworld to hear, Ahzrukhal had given him a wide berth. The most he got from his employer was the occasional wary sidelong glance, which Charon returned with every ounce of ire he could manage.

He'd been doing this for days - one hand on the strap of his shotgun, another in his pocket, barely brushing the old cigar he'd tucked away. He could still smell it, that sweet smell, and the discomfort it brought paired well with tormenting Ahzrukhal. He never let his employer from his sight. It was his own kind of game, a staring contest, an outlet for his angst. Charon trailed his every movement. Ahzrukhal was tense, fidgeting. Every now and then, his gaze flicked to Charon's shotgun.

He should have known Ahzrukhal wouldn't humor him for long. The nervous glances soon stopped, and Ahzrukhal busied himself with customers as if Charon never existed in the first place. Charon stared at the back of Ahzrukhal's head, refusing to accept defeat. Ahzrukhal knew he was watching. His shoulders were more rigid than ever, and he tapped his foot on the damp mat next to the bar. Still, he never once looked back. Even as the door to the bar creaked open, Ahzrukhal refused to look up, buried in his work. Charon glanced over in his stead. He was the Ninth Circle's bouncer after all, and without his staring contest, he needed something to fill the time.

He immediately regretted it. A horrid chill ran up his spine. A ghoul stepped into the bar, one he'd never seen before. He passed just a few feet from Charon, and looked at him with black, slitted eyes. Something wasn't right. He obviously didn't belong there - he was too good for Underworld. The museum was a trash bin for ghouls long tired of immortality. This ghoul was of a different breed. He wore a fedora and a dark, well-tailored suit, free of travel dirt or sweat stains. From afar, he didn't smell much like rot at all, the stink masked by some kind of cologne. Everything about him screamed money. Ghouls didn't come into those kind of caps. Stranger still, a smoothskin boy stuck close to the ghoul's heel, his close-shaved head sticking out of combat armor too big for his frame. He kept his chin tucked and stared at the ground as he passed. A masked sentry entered behind them, then stopped beside the double doors. He stood guard with a gleaming plasma rifle in hand. That settled it. The ghoul was a drug runner, Charon guessed, or he was somebody important before he turned. In any case, he wasn't someone to be fucked with.

Charon shot a desperate glance at Ahzrukhal, but his back was still turned. For the moment, the new guest went unnoticed, choosing a table not far from Charon. The ghoul was looking at him, undeterred by the nasty glare Charon threw in his direction. Charon gripped the strap of his shotgun and tried to ignore it. The familiar knot in his stomach was back again, paired with a cold sweat.

"It's been awhile," said the ghoul.

Charon watched them from the corner of his eye. It wasn't a mistake. They addressed him. He crossed his arms tight against his body. Ahzrukhal was clear about these situations - don't talk to customers. It was one order Charon didn't resent. As he glowered and backed against the wall, the ghoul smirked, his black eyes twinkling.

"None of that. Let me get a better look at you."

He took another step back. The ghoul's smile faded.

"_Come here."_

His words shocked like a cattle prod. A pulse shot through Charon's brain, locked up his muscles. He'd gone completely dumb. He took one uneasy step forward, then another, whittling away the few precious inches he'd put between them. He stopped just an arm's reach away. The ghoul rose to his feet.

"Moody, aren't you?" he said quietly.

He reached out and pressed a thumb into Charon's arm, clucking his tongue at the stained bandage that covered his laser burn. Charon jerked back and reached for his trench knife. This ghoul didn't have a fucking clue how many lines he was crossing.

"Don't move," the ghoul ordered.

Charon went stiff. So stiff, in fact, that he couldn't breathe. His fingers stopped short of his knife handle. This was bad. _Very_ bad. The ghoul released his arm and pulled out a cigar case from his breast pocket, lighting one with a few lazy puffs. Even without breathing, the smoke crawled up Charon's nose. It smelled sweet, like vanilla. Like the cigar he'd been too reluctant to pull from his pocket.

"Do you remember me?" the ghoul asked. He waited for a moment. Charon's empty lungs started to burn. The ghoul took a long pull from his cigar, then spoke again.

"Answer me."

The order freed Charon from the previous. He gasped for breath as the command ripped a word from his throat.

"_Yes."_

Charon wrinkled what was left of his nose. That didn't seem right. He knew the smell. But not the face, and definitely not a name. He strained for his knife, but all it accomplished was a painful cramp. His hand didn't budge an inch. How could this ghoul have power over him? It wasn't like anything he'd felt before. Ahzrukhal's orders didn't come close to this.

"I'd imagine you've started to sort things out," said the ghoul. "You've given your employer quite the fright..." The ghoul chuckled. "But you and I both know there's nothing for him to worry about."

Charon swallowed. He knew condescension well. Ahzrukhal had no shortage of it, but this was different, cloying. It was a hundred times worse. The ghoul talked to him like he was a pet.

"Not much for conversation," the ghoul said. He laughed softly. "I always liked that about you."

Charon mustered up a spiteful look.

"Now, now," the ghoul chided. "You can give that look to other people. But not to me."

He glanced fondly at the smoothskin boy who'd followed him into the bar. The boy stood next to him, eyes on his boots. The ghoul patted him on his shaved head, thumb brushing along a purple scar that ran across his temple.

"Listen up, Subject 06. Next time you give me lip, I want you to remember this. Watch closely now."

The boy pulled his eyes up from the floor. The ghoul ashed his cigar.

"_Charon."_

Charon stiffened. He knew his name. Why did he know his _name?_ He racked his brain. Nothing. No memory. Just a crawling sensation that worsened by the minute. The ghoul cleared his throat and fiddled with his lapel, not bothering to look up.

"I have a favor to ask," the ghoul said. "Kill yourself. You'll do that for me, won't you?"

Charon swallowed. His voice came out before he could stop it.

"Yes."

Hell no. This wasn't happening.

"Use that shotgun you've got there. Go on."

"As you command."

He couldn't think enough to panic. Charon unclipped the strap and pulled it around his shoulder. There wasn't a resistant muscle in his body. Everything moved on its own. He flipped the safety, pumped it, and pushed the barrel against his jaw. A hush fell over the bar. A few ghouls stood up, wide eyed. A chair clattered over. He screwed his eyes shut and put both thumbs on the trigger. This was really it. He was completely fucked.

"You can stop there."

He froze, the trigger pressed halfway down.

"Excellent. Put it down. That won't be necessary, thank you." The ghoul shuddered and looked down at the boy. "Could you imagine? What a waste. Take note, 06. Obedience, to the letter. Even after all this time. You could stand to learn a thing or two."

Charon's shotgun clattered to the floor. Ahzrukhal was looking now. He stalked out from behind the bar, his face twisted in incredulous rage.

"_Charon,"_ he barked. "Explain to me, in as little words as possible, what the fuck you think you're doing."

Charon couldn't answer. Whatever that ghoul did to him kept him quiet, and it was for the best. His first impulse was to plead for help. He'd always figured something like that was beneath him. Thankfully, he could only look from Ahzrukhal to the ghoul, desperate. The ghoul stood calmly, meeting Ahzrukhal as he approached.

"It's alright, sir," he said.

"It's _alright?"_ Ahzrukhal's eyes widened. "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" He disregarded the ghoul and set upon Charon. "I want an explanation," he said gravely. "What are you thinking, pointing that fucking shotgun at your face? You're upsetting people. And not in a good way. You're putting them off their drink. I don't know what the hell has gotten into you, but-"

"I don't think this is necessary," the ghoul interrupted. He sniffed, the only sign of his mounting irritation. "I'm sorry, I... Haven't been forthcoming with you. May I introduce myself?"

Ahzrukhal narrowed his eyes. The ghoul extended a hand.

"You can call me Worth."

A name should have brought _something_ back, but as much as Charon clawed for some shred of recognition, he came up with nothing. It didn't register with Ahzrukhal, either, who kept his hands firmly in his pockets.

"Ah, well, Mister... _Worth._ I don't take kindly to conversation with my bouncer. It's not what he's here for. What's more, he's been having... Behavioral issues, lately. I'd advise you to keep away from him for your own safety."

Charon stared at his employer. For once, Ahzrukhal's short temper came in handy. The prospect made him a little sick, but he felt grateful. Worth blinked, taken aback.

"Forgive me," he said. "But I'm not terribly concerned."

Ahzrukhal paused, looking Worth up and down.

"You... look like a man of means. You'll have to understand... He's a priceless asset to my business. I know you've got the caps, but that's not how it works with this one. If you want to hire him, with all due respect, I'll tell you to kindly go fuck yourself. Make yourself at home, by all means... _Do_ settle in. Drink all you please. But if you talk to him again, I'll have to point you to the door."

Worth laughed softly and adjusted his cuffs.

_"Priceless?_ Well, I'm glad you feel that way. When you contacted me I was concerned you'd be handing him back."

Ahzrukhal looked like he'd been smacked in the jaw. Any gratitude Charon felt towards him went up in smoke.

"I've... I've made a terrible mistake," Ahzrukhal gasped.

If only Ahzrukhal knew how right he was. Though still frozen, Charon's muscles were coiled tight, waiting. He glanced at his shotgun, where it lay just inches from his feet. He bit his tongue and looked up, before he could entertain the fantasy. He wasn't going through that again.

Ahzrukhal shook his head, whipped out a handkerchief from his suit pocket, and dabbed at his forehead. Seeing him sweat gave Charon some satisfaction. Maybe their little game was wearing on him. Maybe Ahzrukhal was cracking. Charon hoped so. He'd never seen his employer this flustered. Better still, when Ahzrukhal noticed the smoothskin boy, whatever blood was left in his decaying face made a hasty retreat.

"I'm _so_ sorry," Ahzrukhal insisted. "I can't apologize enough. I... ah. You're a busy man. I didn't expect you, it's just... I didn't expect you so soon. Ah... Shit, where are my manners?"

He reached out gave Worth a double-gripped, enthusiastic handshake. Charon growled.

"Ahzrukhal. Charmed. Totally charmed. Really. It's an honor."

Worth smiled politely and pulled his hand back.

"No, no. There's need for that. Glad you're protective of my handiwork."

"Yes, well. Hah. I always say, caution is the mark of a wise man." He glanced over at the bar, then back at Worth. "E... Excuse me for a minute, will you?" He shot Charon a look as he passed by. "Get back to work and watch the bar. I'm busy."

He hurried over to the bar. A few eavesdropping ghouls looked away quickly. Ahzrukhal reached over the bar, grabbed a bottle of pre-war bourbon and two glasses. Charon didn't move. He couldn't even if he wanted to.

"Charon, don't make me tell you again," he barked.

Ahzrukhal set the bottle on the nearby table and frowned. Charon stayed put, staring daggers.

"Getting worse by the day," he said. He looked at Worth. "You see what I have to deal with?"

Worth pulled up a chair and puffed on his cigar.

"Now, don't be so hard on him. He's deferred to my authority."

"He's- _What did you say?"_

Worth gestured for Ahzrukhal to take a seat. He followed suit, his brow pinched in disbelief. Worth smiled reassuringly.

"It happens by default," he explained. "I understand if that's a bit disconcerting. I can undo it if you like. But his presence here is no nuisance to me. In fact, I'd prefer it."

Ahzrukhal leaned back in his chair.

"Suit yourself," he said. He uncorked the bottle and poured them both a tall drink.

"You know, I can't apologize enough," Worth said. "I should have come long before this. An earlier meeting, maybe, and your concerns wouldn't be so dire..." He clasped his hands together somberly. "Forgive me for not introducing myself when we settled our business. You understand. People take issue with my line of work."

He gestured to the sentry at the door.

"My security has improved, but I still never know who will try to hamstring me."

He beckoned to the boy, who stepped closer. Worth placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"What's more, my latest project has been a handful," he explained. The boy stared ahead, not reacting to his touch. "He's a work in progress. Sixth one to make it this far, but nowhere close to employable. I wasn't sure if he was ready to leave the facility, but he's done much better than I expected."

Charon looked the boy up and down, and immediately felt sick. His skinny arms were covered in needle scars. Every now and then, he twitched.

"I figured I'd give him something to aspire to. A little glimpse of his future. A learning experience, so to speak."

Worth smirked into his glass as he took a drink.

"I'm joking, of course," he continued. "Subject 06 is totally vacant. Capable with a weapon, mind you. Raw instinct. Very dangerous... But also very stupid. Won't remember any of this. The only lessons that stick are ones taught with a mesmetron."

He snapped his fingers in front of the boy's face. Not even a flinch. Charon watched, feeling colder by the minute. That braindead kid was the tipping point. He could place it, now, why just the sight of Worth made him sweat. The smell of those vanilla cigars, the chill that ran up his spine, his _voice._ That voice had called him by a number, once, too.

"Truthfully, I thought you'd be interested," Worth said. "For all the caps you paid me, it's a shame you missed Charon's formative years."

Ahzrukhal watched the boy with a wretched smirk on his face.

"Now, that explains a lot." He looked up at Charon. "Life's always a bit fuzzy for you, isn't it?"

Charon scowled, daring Ahzrukhal to keep talking. Ahzrukhal narrowed his eyes.

"Maybe that's changing," he said. "To put it mildly, Charon's gotten a little testy for my liking. I guess I share the blame. I give him a little nudge every now and then, just to see how he takes it. This time? Not well."

Charon grit his teeth. Despite the slight tremble of the glass in Ahzrukhal's hand, despite the sheen of flop sweat on his face, he had the nerve to talk like that. Charon set to glowering in his direction as much as possible.

"I see what you mean," Worth remarked.

"Oh, yeah. _That."_ Ahzrukhal jabbed a thumb at Charon. "You can fix that, can't you?"

Worth nodded. Charon clenched his fists. The situation was coming into focus, and it didn't look good. Ahzrukhal spoke about him the same way he spoke to Winthrop when the fridge was broken. All it took to fix Charon's defiant streak was a few swapped out parts, and Worth was a capable handyman.

"We'll see what needs fixing," Worth said. "This really isn't unusual. He was due for a rude awakening any day now. He might develop an attitude, but it's nothing personal."

"Somehow I seriously doubt that, Mr. Worth," Ahzrukhal muttered.

"Ah. My mistake. I suppose you're right. Yes, I suppose, given the rather... messy circumstances of his employment."

Worth smiled at Charon. The ghoul was teasing him just like Ahzrukhal, dangling things in front of his face that he'd long forgotten. But Charon realized all too quickly - he couldn't treat him like he treated his employer. He made the mistake of looking Worth in the eyes. His skin crawled, then prickled unbearably. He broke away and stared in Ahzrukhal's direction, conjuring up the most ornery look he could muster. It helped, if only a little.

"_Oh._ My. I see. Does he look at you like that often?"

Charon debated it for a moment, then tried again, shooting a similarly vicious glare at Worth. The discomfort came surging back - this time, wringing his guts like a wet rag. He endured it for a few seconds, then dropped his eyes to the ground.

"_Charming,"_ Worth laughed to himself. "Charon, do you hate your employer? Be honest."

Ahzrukhal frowned, set his elbows on the table, and leaned in.

"Perhaps you shouldn't-"

Worth raised a hand and cut him off.

"No, I think you need to hear this," he said.

Worth spoke quietly, but he may as well have shouted. Ahzrukhal ruffled his suit jacket, visibly flustered. Charon couldn't suppress a shiver. Ahzrukhal _knew_ he was pathetic. He inflated himself, he raised his voice, and all it took was a few terse words to cut him down to size. Worth was different. He wasn't compensating for anything.

"Answer me, Charon," Worth repeated. "Do you hate him?"

The words came up before he could stop them. Charon made a point to only look in Ahzrukhal's direction.

"Yes," he choked. "I do."

Ahzrukhal scoffed and filled his glass. He pretended not to notice Charon's lingering stare, and he was doing a poor job of it.

"Care to elaborate?" Ahzrukhal asked. His voice dripped with bile.

Charon clenched his teeth.

"Explain," Worth ordered.

"I am not... certain I can."

That was the truth. He didn't have the words for the kind of hatred he felt, not to mention a concrete reason.

"Bullshit," Ahzrukhal snapped. He jammed his fidgeting hands in his pockets.

Worth ignored the interjection, leaning back in his seat to take a long drink.

"Straight to the point, Charon," he said at last. "You never were terribly articulate. How about this... Have you thought of killing him?"

"Yes," Charon said.

"Often?"

"_Yes."_

Charon knew he couldn't lie to Worth, as much as he wanted to. Not even a half truth would be enough. He hated how familiar this was, being interrogated by him, not being able to hold his tongue for even a second before he spit out an answer. All that was missing was a table, a mesmetron, a light in his face. In this situation, as it was in that awful memory, he had a feeling there were right and wrong answers. So far, he'd answered wrong.

"How would you kill him?" Worth continued.

"A bullet in the face."

Charon clenched his fists. Wrong again. Ahzrukhal finally looked at Charon, his eyes narrowed. He lit another cigarette. He was burning through them at a record pace.

"He had a straight answer for that one," he muttered.

Ahzrukhal's expression darkened. Charon ignored it. Ahzrukhal couldn't intimidate him, not with that act. Charon saw the graveyard of cigarettes in the ashtray, saw the way he picked at his fraying cufflink as he smoked. All the mugging in the world didn't mean anything. Charon's heart raced like he'd been sprinting, but it wasn't Ahzrukhal he was afraid of.

"Bear with me," said Worth. He turned his black eyes on Charon. "Tell me. What's stopped you?"

Charon locked eyes with him again, bracing for another wave of unease. It didn't come. To his horror, something worse took its place. There was something familiar, oddly urgent, about Worth's face. Something about the eagerness in his eyes. He wanted Charon to impress him, and the thought of doing anything less made Charon's legs go weak. He'd never felt this with Ahzrukhal, never felt an urge to _please._ It was vile. Worth's cigar smoke seeped up into Charon's eyes, and he squeezed them shut. It only gave him a moment's relief. He was free from Worth's stare, but that splitting headache was back, turning the blackness behind his eyelids into something else.

_He was on his back again, tied down to a gurney, in a room so dark it was almost black. A metal door beeped, then hissed open. It flooded everything with white light._

_He squinted, eyes adjusting to the dark. There was a silhouette in the doorway, rotting flesh and black eyes coming into focus. It wasn't the first ghoul he'd seen. But it was the first time he'd seen eyes like that. They watched him with unsettling fondness._

"_Hello," the ghoul said. "It's only polite to introduce myself. You can call me Director. Everyone here does."_

_He punched a code into a nearby terminal. The door latched with a hiss._

"_They never did provide me your name. Not that it matters. We'll call you Subject 03."_

"_Subject... 03?" His voice came out a prepubescent squeak. "B-But my name is-"_

_The ghoul clucked his tongue and laughed softly._

"_No, no. That won't do. We're not concerned with who you think you are. We're concerned with who we'll help you become."_

"_But... Wh... Where am I?"_

_He pushed against his restraints, straining to look around._

"_Think of it like a school, Subject 03. You're here to learn. We have but one simple lesson for you. It takes a long time to learn it correctly."_

_The ghoul brushed his fingers across an object on a nearby table, a large metal box covered with plugs and wires._

"_What... is that?"_

"_It's called a mesmetron."_

_The ghoul smiled and picked it up. His black eyes twinkled._

"_I've always loved machines. Don't you? Terminals, robots... It's typical of boys your age. I suppose that's why you've all carried on so well with me..."_

"_What... what does it do?"_

"_This is a tool to help you learn."_

"_What are you g-going to do to me?"_

"_Full of questions, aren't you? That's a good sign. You're a little old for my purposes. I prefer younger boys. More curious, more impressionable. Boys your age are set in their ways. But you are inquisitive. Who knows how this will turn out?"_

_The ghoul grinned wider._

"_I guess I'm full of questions, too."_

_He pressed a few buttons on the mesmetron. It lit up with a blue glow and hummed._

"_Answers don't always come right away. You and I, we'll have to be patient, won't we? Let's begin. We'll start with our first lesson."_

_The ghoul pressed another button and aimed it at the gurney. A pulse of blue light erupted from the mesmetron, a series of concentric rings that passed straight through him. He felt strange._

"_Condition one. You are obligated to serve your employer. Repeat."_

_The ghoul looked on, watching him with eager eyes, willing him to speak. His mind was blank. It was just a few words. Why couldn't he remember it?_

"_I can't..." he stammered. He could barely form a sentence. "What... What did you do to me?"_

_The ghoul frowned._

"_I'm sorry, Subject 03. I can't accept anything less than perfection. Now, let's try that again. Condition One."_

_The ghoul leaned in. He fired up the mesmetron again, aiming it between the eyes._

"I'll ask you again. Why haven't you shot him?"

Charon shuddered. The memory faded, but Worth's expectant look pinned him in place all the same.

"Charon," Worth chided. "Don't make me repeat myself."

He'd hardly come to his senses, but he spit out the answer anyway.

"Condition Seven. Violence against an employer is strictly forbidden."

Worth brightened.

"Absolutely right! Excellent."

Charon pressed his lips together. _Condition Seven._ They never had numbers attached to them before. But they'd always been there, tucked away in his head - the terms of his contract, the rules he couldn't help but regurgitate. Now he knew why. Worth had hammered them into his brain personally, one by one.

"You see?" Worth continued. He topped off his drink and gave Ahzrukhal a polite smile. "At this point, the conditioning is permanent. There's nothing he can do about that. We've given him a sort of... Mental failsafe. He'll shut down before he can carry out a single act of violence against you. A grudge, no matter how severe, shouldn't change that."

Charon grimaced. Worth's words rang true. Just listening to him made him dizzy, brought back the throbbing in his arm.

"He's talked back to me," Ahzrukhal said with a sniff. "Fought against my orders, actually. He grabbed his gun. _I had to knock it out of his hand._ What makes you think he wouldn't have enough time to get a shot in before whatever you did to him kicks in?"

Worth laughed quietly.

"Oh, dear. He is a... Mmm. How should I put this? A _special_ case?" He took a drag from his cigar and gestured at the smoothskin boy. "Sometimes this one talks back. I've learned not to blame him. I don't have anyone to blame but myself. I've been too easy on him. After Charon, being a disciplinarian lost its allure."

"Lovely," Ahzrukhal seethed. "Care to elaborate on that? Or does being vague get you off?"

Charon glared at Ahzrukhal. His employer was a walking contradiction. He could dish out cryptic rambling, but he certainly couldn't take it. Worth's mouth curled up slightly at the edges.

"Charon had quite a violent streak," he said. "Culminated in a little... tantrum. Lost me one of my best assistants. Maybe it was his personality. Oh, don't look like that. Everyone has their flaws. But it could just as easily have been my methods. The mesmetron's technology isn't perfect. When Charon came into our care, we'd hammered out most of the kinks with our equipment. But as is the nature of my business, things don't always go the way we planned. We adjust accordingly. He is a prototype, after all."

Worth took a drink, ignoring Ahzrukhal's frigid stare. Charon stifled his own ragged breathing, fighting to stay quiet. The bits and pieces of memories started to line up - the dead smoothskin in a lab coat, the mesmetron in his hands. He remembered being angry. He remembered wanting _revenge._ Charon was fixated on Worth, obsessed, hanging on his words as if he could piece them together like a puzzle.

"I do wonder, though... He was cross with me for most of his upbringing. I don't suspect he remembered how he came into my possession. The first few weeks of our regimen did away with much of his memory. Nothing left but habits to scrub out at that point. But I suppose circumstances like that can leave quite an imprint even after the memory's long gone."

Charon twitched. That anger, the same anger from his memory, came back in waves. It was Ahzrukhal's reaction that drove it home. His eyes flicked towards Charon, then back to Worth again. Charon had seen that look before, but he hadn't pinned it down until now. Ahzrukhal was terrified.

"I-I'll have to stop you there," Ahzrukhal stammered hastily. "Are you sure he should hear this?"

Charon narrowed his eyes. It was starting to sink in. There was something Ahzrukhal would never mention. He dangled scraps of Charon's past in front of him, leaving out bits and pieces to keep things opaque. But he never talked about that. He'd always avoided _that_. There was a big black spot in Charon's memory, and all that went along with it was rage.

"Oh, if you rather he didn't, then that's just fine," Worth said, smiling patiently. "But if you've got concerns about his conditioning, I'll advise you to soundly tuck them away. Wiping his memory was essential for my methods to stick. But now that my work's been done, it doesn't matter what he recalls. He may remember things on his own. Maybe he already has - it would explain the testiness. The brain heals. It doesn't change anything. He will always be loyal to you."

"Maybe loyal's not the _best_ word."

"How could I put it... Subservient? Yes, utterly so." Worth leaned forward on his elbows. "It really comes down to the simple questions, Mr. Ahzrukhal. Has he laid a finger on you? In the very - and I mean _extremely_ \- unlikely event that it ever comes to that... I'd be obliged to take him in for some tweaking. Free of charge, of course."

"Would you, now?" Ahzrukhal kept his eyes on Worth, weighing the proposition, unaware of the bloodthirsty look Charon sent his way. "I'd rather not wait until _after_ he's pulled that shotgun on me."

Charon bit his tongue. He still had his pride. He wouldn't beg Ahzrukhal to reconsider, but he sure as hell wanted to. He wanted it almost as much as he wanted to grab his shotgun and turn Ahzrukhal into a bloody pulp. He looked from Worth, to Ahzrukhal, and back to Worth again. An unexpected expression crossed Worth's face. The ghoul pressed his lips together in a line.

"Are you certain?" Worth said, after a moment.

"He's been daydreaming about putting a bullet in my head, so forgive me, but yes. I'm fucking certain."

Charon felt like he'd been socked in the stomach. This was it. Ahzrukhal's end-game. He'd provoked Charon enough, pushed him out of line _just_ enough to warrant this. All the memories he'd painstakingly pieced together would be wiped away. All because he took Ahzrukhal's bait, all because couldn't keep himself in check.

Charon clenched his fists until it hurt. How much of it was lies? There was never a time limit on their arrangement, there was never an _arrangement_ to begin with. How could there be? He didn't have a say in any of this. He belonged to Ahzrukhal, a slave, bought and paid for. Knicknack was right about that, too. Ahzrukhal could say whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, as long as he could wipe Charon clean like a chalkboard at the snap of his fingers. It was just that simple.

Charon looked at Worth, utterly defeated. After another moment of staring at the back wall of the bar, Worth shut his eyes and shook his head. Charon was at a loss. It didn't make sense.

"No, I think you've misunderstood," Worth said. For once, his words took on a defensive edge. "These measures are a last resort. It'd be a terrible waste. His mental capacity... A shame to dash that to pieces just as it's begun. No, I don't think it's necessary. I went to great lengths to break him."

Ahzrukhal frowned.

"I called you for damage control, and now you're telling me you won't fix the problem?" He scoffed and tossed back his drink. "Fine. You're the expert. I'll take your word for it, but if I end up full of buckshot and live to tell about it, it'll be more than Charon's precious mental capacity that'll be dashed to pieces. I'm not fucking around."

Charon could hardly stop himself from shaking. He'd been holding his breath this whole time, and he let it out all in one go. The conflicted look on Worth's face passed. He looked at Charon, and his eyes twinkled with amusement. He brushed off Ahzrukhal's threat as if it were a well-meaning jab between friends, and leaned over to fill Ahzrukhal's cup. Ahzrukhal slouched in his chair, narrowing his eyes as the silence dragged on. Ahzrukhal flipped open his pack of cigarettes and scowled miserably. Only one left. He lit it and rapped his fingers on the table.

"It doesn't add up," he said.

"Oh?"

Worth brushed off his suit, not looking up. Ahzrukhal took another drink and set his glass down with extra force.

"If you knew this was nothing to worry about, why did you come so quickly?"

Worth put his elbows on the table and puffed lazily on his cigar, unfazed by Ahzrukhal's suspicion.

"I do have a reputation to uphold, don't I? I can't have people unsatisfied."

Ahzrukhal leaned back skeptically. Worth laughed, finally releasing Charon from his gaze.

"To be truthful... I'm also an indulgent man. I've invested a large portion of my time and caps into Charon's upbringing, you see. I'm a little attached."

Charon watched his employer. Ahzrukhal shifted and took a drag of whiskey, wrinkling what was left of his rotted nose. Despite his desperate attempts to appear gracious, couldn't hide his disgust. It was one thing they could agree on. Charon tasted bile.

"I regretted taking him at first, you know," Worth said. He looked at Charon fondly. Charon cringed. "He was a bit older than I'd hoped. But he had potential, I saw it almost immediately. I tend to mind my capital vices. But I can't help being proud of my handiwork..."

He trailed off. Ahzrukhal shifted again, and Worth chuckled to himself. Charon glared at him, but it didn't dampen his mood. As Worth's smile widened, it hit Charon like a ton of bricks. The ghoul would never give Ahzrukhal what he wanted, not in a million years. There was nothing to _fix._ Worth wasn't the type to doubt his work. No, he enjoyed Charon's disobedience, and he only came to see it for himself. Worth's craft, the brainwashing, didn't mean anything if Charon didn't fight against it. It was a stress test, visible proof of quality. As long as Worth's rules still bound him, Charon could struggle all he wanted. It didn't make a lick of difference.

"You know, a museum is fitting for him," Worth added. He ignored Ahzrukhal's bored stare. It didn't matter if he listened to him or not. He wasn't the intended audience. He looked at Charon, his horrid smile unwavering.

"It's a marvel how ideas endure," he continued. "Ancient myths, pre-war technology... All things worth keeping are crafted to stand the test of time. Naturally, Charon necessitated the same treatment."

His eyes sparkled, and the rotted flesh around them crinkled. Charon looked away. The headache came first, followed by rings of blue. He fought it this time. He recognized the memory before it took shape, and there was no way in hell he'd give it the chance. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Charon," Worth began.

Charon grit his teeth, fighting back until he pushed it down. He didn't envy the other ghouls, not when it came to this. He'd bite his own tongue off before he remembered what that much radiation felt like.

"_Charon."_

He opened his eyes. The last of the blue circles faded.

"There he is," Worth said. He looked at Charon expectantly. "Head in the clouds?"

Charon blinked at him. Worth smiled.

"Give us some space, won't you? I'd like to speak to your employer in private."

Finally, Charon moved. He didn't have to be told twice. Every step between him and Worth helped him bury the memory deeper in his brain. He retreated to his usual post, ignoring the customers' stares. Worth finished up quickly. He wasn't all that interested in Ahzrukhal. When he spoke, his eyes often wandered over to where Charon stood, and only a few minutes passed before he got up and made his way towards the door.

"Remember what I told you," Worth said to Ahzrukhal. "If he's too much of a liability... You could double our original price, passing him on. Easily. Although I'd advise you to keep a receipt. I'd like to follow up in a few decades. See how much of his attitude has to do with your... arrangement. A new contract holder could change things. It's in your hands, of course."

He nodded to his sentry at the door, and paused to look back as he passed Charon.

"Subject 06," he chided. "Don't drag your feet."

The boy sped up, following inches from Worth's heel. Worth turned to Charon.

"When we cross paths again, this pretty little smoothskin will look more like you. Another twenty years, maybe?"

Charon glared at Worth one last time. Worth smiled.

"Typical," he quipped. "Won't even perk up for a goodbye."

He sighed and pushed open the door.

"Don't look so sullen, Charon. An eternity is a long time to sulk. "

Charon wanted to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come. He opened his mouth, and only a choking sound came out. Worth looked back one last time, flashing the same wide grin from before. Charon withered. It was just as the ghoul said. Coming here was a self indulgent exercise. In that sense, Worth wasn't any different from Ahzrukhal. He was merely playing a game.


	5. Chapter 5

Winter in the wasteland was never pretty. Two weeks of a leaky ceiling, cold weather, and never-ending damp, and the vibe of the Ninth Circle shifted for the worse. Irritability was the order of the day, especially for Ahzrukhal. Presently, he stood in front of Charon, his chest puffed out and eyes flashing with spite.

"I want you to keep a closer eye on these bastards," he warned. His breath rattled out in clouds. "I caught one of them trying to swipe some booze from the shelf when my back was turned."

Ahzrukhal picked him apart with his eyes. Charon reveled in it, praying he'd caught the twitch of a smirk on his face. It wasn't the first time a customer had filched something that day, and he'd been watching the whole time. The missing inventory was the only excitement he could scrape together. After twenty years of business, Ahzrukhal's ambitions had shrunk to fit between the walls of the Ninth Circle. There were no more messy errands, no more debts to settle, and the chem-runs were few and far between.

"_Charon._ Did you hear what I just said?"

Charon looked at Ahzrukhal blankly. It was the easiest way to get under his skin. Ahzrukhal could only wait for so long before his discomfort showed. He dropped his eyes, pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket and flipped open his lighter. He flicked it again and again, his scowl deepening with each spark.

"Look," Ahzrukhal growled. He chucked the spent lighter aside. "I know you're not stupid. I'm getting a bit tired of having to do my job and yours. You need to start acting like you have half a brain and watch these drunks more carefully. I'm getting sick of my stock disappearing."

"I will try," Charon offered.

Ahzrukhal bared his teeth.

"Don't try. _Do._ Get your thumb out of your ass and start paying attention to what's going on around you."

"Understood," he said flatly.

"_Good,"_ Ahzrukhal shot back. "You know how I hate to worry."

Ahzrukhal looked him in in the eyes again. Charon stood his ground. Arguing with Ahzrukhal had its charms, but it was moments like these that made for real entertainment. Ahzrukhal searched Charon's face for defiance, and Charon gave it to him, conjuring up the surliest look he could muster. Ahzrukhal practically withered in front of him. He shrank back, deflated. Charon smirked as Ahzrukhal turned and slunk back to the bar.

It had been twenty long years since he'd first reached for his shotgun, and Ahzrukhal was still afraid of him. How stupid was he, back then, to think obedience would make things easier? He tried playing nice - a year here, a few months there. He could never keep it up for long. Eventually, he'd stopped trying completely. Worth was right, after all. An eternity _was_ a long time to sulk. After his first and only visit, the ghoul's parting words left a lasting mark. Charon took them as a challenge. He'd learned to wallow in misery like his life depended on it.

Twenty years passed, but Charon's murderous itch hadn't died down. He was totally certain of it, now. Ahzrukhal had fucked him over, big time. He'd tried for so long to dredge the memory up, but all he could find was loathing. No real explanation. To compensate, he kept a running tally of every new transgression, every irritation, and made a mental note to strike back. For a ghoul as wretched as Ahzrukhal, the strikes piled up fast, and with them, the urge kill only worsened. He'd picked at it every single day, entertaining the fantasy and letting it fester. It was juvenile. But Charon's conditioning didn't allow for much more than petty scorekeeping. His memory and his knack for grudges only sharpened with time.

With an ear-splitting squeal, the door to the bar opened. Ahzrukhal stopped in his tracks, halfway to the bartop. Any hint of discomfort fled as his face cracked in a toothy sneer. As if on cue, more than a few heads turned, Charon's included. He'd been praying all week for something interesting to happen, and this time, it actually worked. A human staggered through the door. They were an utter wreck, drenched from head to toe, dented combat armor and all. As they limped to the front of the bar, Charon marveled at the massive laser burn on their back, still spewing smoke.

"My, my. A smoothskin I've never seen before," Ahzrukhal sidled up to them as they passed, walking in stride. _"Oh._ Don't you look absolutely... miserable. Super Mutants give you trouble? Pull up a stool, lay down a few caps, and tell me all about it..."

They took a seat at the bar. Ahzrukhal fetched them a glass and smiled.

"Yes, yes. Sit. Drink. Pay. It'll make you feel better."

They nodded, still short of breath. Between gulps of whiskey, they glanced around the bar. Ahzrukhal let them be, busying himself with the radio that cut in and out. He banged on it incessantly, cursing. The rain outside was giving a bad signal. Charon watched the customers. With the music gone, he could hear them talking. Their conversations fell to a whisper as they zeroed in on the night's entertainment.

"They're loaded, I'm telling you," hissed a ghoul. "Look at the caps they're throwing down. Check out the pip-boy."

"Stole it off a vault dweller?" asked another.

"Nah, bet they _are_ a vault dweller."

"You're nuts."

"No, seriously. They're wet behind the ears. You see how freaked they are? Bet they've never even seen a ghoul before! Freggin smoothskins. Hate it when the muties let one slip."

"Don't worry," sneered a third. "Ahzrukhal's gonna milk 'em for all they're worth. He always does."

Charon snorted. They weren't wrong. Ahzrukhal offered to top off the visitor's glass, scowling when they turned him down. He took a special interest in smoothskins, pumping them full of booze and chems until they could barely stand. This time, his special guest wasn't playing along. They slid off their stool and meandered around the bar, fishing for conversation and failing miserably. They didn't get much more than a few words out of anyone. After one too many cold shoulders, they made their way past Charon, dejected. They brightened up when they saw his shotgun.

"You for hire?" they asked.

They looked him in the eye. Charon cringed. This one was bad, even for a newcomer. They were too eager, too upfront. Not normal. Didn't they know what kind of place this was? That kind of attitude got people shot.

"Talk to Ahzrukhal," he said dismissively.

"Well I..."

"No."

They paused, bewildered. Charon guessed they weren't used to being shot down. He narrowed his eyes. Maybe the other ghouls were right. Vault dweller would explain a lot.

"It's just that-"

"I don't think so," Charon said. "Talk. To. Ahzrukhal."

"Whoa, alright." The human backed away. "Sheesh."

Nearby, several ghouls snickered.

"Man, Charon put 'em in their place," one jeered. "Always does."

Charon watched as the smoothskin trudged back to Ahzrukhal. He knew how these conversations usually went. His employment _did_ have an expiration date, but not the kind Charon had hoped for. Twenty years of death glares earned him a price tag, and Ahzrukhal refused to haggle. There were more than a few offers, dead on arrival, and this wasn't likely to go any differently. The smoothskin leaned close. They nodded for a few seconds as Ahzrukhal spoke, then recoiled.

"...So he's your slave?"

Their words rang out across the bar. They looked disgusted. Somewhere in the back of the Ninth Circle, a ghoul laughed, and Ahzrukhal scowled.

"No, he is not," he said. He spoke loud enough for his customers to hear. "You insult me. I am a firm believer in personal choice... Chains are earned, never forced. Charon made some... _choices_ that landed him in my employ. The matters of our contract is between him and I. No one else. "

Ahzrukhal loved his soapbox. Charon wanted to smack his past self in in the mouth for believing the shit his employer spewed. These little speeches were the closest Charon ever came to remembering what Ahzrukhal did to him, and it was because the ghoul was lying through his teeth. Charon seethed and mashed his palm into his temple. After twenty years of unexplained headaches, he'd gotten better at digging at his own brain, prodding at his blank memory until it regurgitated something. But it never gave him what he wanted, not when it came to this. What _was_ it? He'd sat through Ahzrukhal's bullshitting too many times, and he could never nail it down.

The spike of pain came first. He didn't know why this time was different, but he'd finally gotten somewhere. It was something about the phrasing. A few more seconds of strained thought, and he grinned as his vision pulsed blue. He lived for the little victories, but that grin faded fast. A memory came to the surface, and it wasn't pretty. Charon expected as much, but he couldn't help but grimace at the grotesque image that flashed in his head.

_There was an older man, twitching beside him on the ground, a massive hole in his chest. A female slaver stood over him with a smoking sawed-off shotgun. A few feet away, a group of caravaners cowered as the slaver jabbed her barrel at them. They looked from the slaver, to the body, and back again._

"_Don't you all start getting ideas," she warned. "I'll do it again."_

_Another slaver stood behind her._

"_What the fuck, man. Couldn't you just knee-cap him?"_

_He ripped his eyes from the slavers and stared at the body. The man's face was covered by a fogged up helmet. He could hear him sputtering underneath. His revolver lay in the dirt, a few inches from his splayed hand._

"_I'd be dead if I knee-capped him, asshole."_

_The slavers stepped towards him. He crept closer to the body, as if it offered some sort of protection._

_"That must be the kid."_

"_Yeah. I'd say so. Stickin' real close to him."_

"_So what are you waiting for? Nab him."_

_He tried to sprint out into the open wasteland. They grabbed him. He clawed at the slavers, kicked at them, bit at their hands as they tried to pin him down._

"_Ouch! Quit it, you little shit!"_

_The woman slammed her elbow into his chest and knocked the wind out of him. Gasping, he crawled back towards the corpse._

"_Go ahead. Cuddle with that dead fucker as much as you want. He's not pulling any more stupid stunts for you."_

_A knee on his back pinned him down. She snapped a collar on him._

"_This thing's rigged to blow. You make a run for it, you go splat. Got it?"_

_The collar started beeping. He froze and laid in the dirt, cowering as they looked him over._

"_What the hell are we going to do with this skinny-ass kid? God, did he piss himself? Jeez. Just put him out of his misery."_

"_No. Shuffler was real clear about that. Big one goes to Paradise Falls. The kid comes with us."_

_Her partner coughed and prodded the corpse with his gun._

"_Great. So much for the first half. This guy ain't goin' anywhere. You fucked it."_

"_We'll take whatever caps this asshole has on him. And we're bringing in the kid. I like getting paid. I'm not ditching this job for one little screw-up."_

The image faded too early. Charon growled, trying to bring it back. He needed more. He felt like puking. At least it gave the past some clarity, explained the murderous urges that set this all off in the first place. He was right, all those years ago. He'd never met Bug and Knicknack, but they made uncanny stand-ins for the slavers that truly deserved to pay. The memory of their brains on the pavement brought fresh satisfaction, but Ahzrukhal's words made less sense now more than ever. Charon looked up. The smoothskin was staring, and when Charon looked their way, they frowned.

"He doesn't say much, does he?" they asked.

Ahzrukhal laughed wryly.

"His company is rather refreshing, isn't it? But don't mistake his brevity for stupidity. That would be very unwise."

The smoothskin leaned in. Based on Ahzrukhal's lusty grin, Charon guessed they were asking about the price. The smoothskin grimaced. Definitely the price.

"Couldn't we work out some sort of deal?" they asked.

"I suppose we could do that, although you might not like the deal that I have to offer. You see, I don't like competition. Not at all."

They talked quieter. Charon didn't put much thought into it, still swallowing back the contents of his churning stomach. He guessed Ahzrukhal was on about Greta, the good-natured ghoul who worked the cafe on the opposite landing.

This particular scheme was on the top of Charon's shit list. Ahzrukhal's didn't just want Greta gone, he wanted her dead. The only reason Ahzrukhal hadn't ordered Charon to do it was because he wanted to cover his tracks, and finding someone else to do his dirty work was proving difficult. Based on the smoothskin's horrified expression as Ahzrukhal carried on, not much had changed.

"I want nothing to do with this shit," they spat at last.

Ahzrukhal leaned in. More whispering, and the stranger sat up, exasperated.

"Two _thousand?_" they croaked. They balked for a moment, then exhaled. "Fine, alright. Deal."

It didn't make sense. No-name wanderers like that didn't have that many caps. And if they did, they didn't bring them here. Charon waited for Ahzrukhal's anger, for him to realize he was being duped, but that moment never came. Just like that, his contract changed hands. Ahzrukhal's grin mixed with a touch of unhinged euphoria.

"I'll give you the pleasure of informing Charon yourself," he said cheerfully.

Charon's heartbeat picked up as the smoothskin approached. He still couldn't believe it.

"I, uh..." They looked back over their shoulder. "I have good news. I'm your new... employer?"

They tugged at their armor awkwardly. Ghouls across the bar stared, wide eyed, in disbelief.

Charon struggled to keep a straight face.

"That... is good to know," he said.

That was the understatement of the century, but he didn't have time to mince words. Any skepticism he had faded fast. Ahzrukhal wasn't his employer anymore. The end he'd waited for was finally here. He always wondered if he'd feel different when it happened. Relieved, maybe. He certainly felt _something._ Charon stepped out from the corner. The smoothskin chewed at their lip.

"So, I guess that means-"

"Please, wait here," he said. "I have to take care of something."

The smoothskin hesitated, stunned as Charon pushed past them. This couldn't happen quick enough. Charon's thoughts raced as he ran through every single murderous fantasy from the last twenty years. There was no spinning this time. No blue lights in the corner of his vision. Nothing told him to stop. It was tricky to name what he was feeling, but glee was as good a word as any.

"Ahzrukhal," he said, closing the distance between them. "I am told that I am no longer in your service."

Ahzrukhal tensed and looked him up and down. The mirth from earlier fled his face. Charon caught a flash of fear, but Ahzrukhal quickly masked it. He regarded Charon with half-lidded eyes and a disdainful flick of his cigarette.

"That's right, Charon," he said. "Have you come to say goodbye?"

"Yes."

Charon reached over his shoulder and gripped the stock of his shotgun. Ahzrukhal's hand snapped to his pistol. Too slow. He was dead on the first shot, a gaping hole in his cheap suit, gore sliding down the wall behind him. Charon shot him again anyway, turning his skull to a pulp. 

"Holy fuck!" Seated just a few feet away, a ghoul at the bar scrambled back. Another ran up against the bar and peered over.

"Oh my god... he shot Ahzrukhal!"

Charon lowered his shotgun and glanced behind him. The rest of the ghouls stayed put, staring. For a moment, the music on the radio faded into static, leaving the bar in a hush. No one moved.

On the floor by Charon's feet, Ahzrukhal's cigarette still burned, the smoke leaking up into Charon's face. It stung his nose. The smell of rot was strong, too. Like any ghoul, he'd long since gotten used to his own stench. But the odor permeating from the smattering of holes in Ahzrukhal body was powerful enough to notice.

The headache came first, then the blue spots. That smell. He remembered the first time he'd been close enough to take it in. He didn't realize how bad ghouls smelled. They reeked like hot garbage.

_Ahzrukhal stood over him, alongside a smoothskin in a dusty labcoat. They were in one of the museum's tunnels, one of the passageways from the abandoned exhibits. The slavers had dragged him there. They stuck close on either side of him, practically groveling as Ahzrukhal looked on with disdain._

"_It... It didn't go well," said the female slaver. "Your mark was real twitchy. Freaked out when we went for the kid. I had to cap him, alright? I... I didn't have a choice."_

"_That's not ideal," Ahzrkuhal said bluntly. "He owed me, big."_

_The characteristic ghoul stink mixed with the smell of cheap cigarettes. Ahzrukhal was smoking one, and blew the smoke down, directly into his eyes._

"_But... you got his boy, like I asked. He'll more than make up for it. I'll only knock a quarter off your payment. This is a special day for me, and I'm feeling generous."_

_Ahzrukhal leaned back against the wall._

"_Listen, boy," he said. "It seems you and I are in a bit of a pickle. Your guardian owed me caps. _

_Quite a lot, actually. We had a deal, him and I. He was supposed to get me chems, and it seems he didn't hold our partnership sacrosanct. But that's not my problem. And it's not his, either. Not since he decided to pull a gun on these lovely people." He gestured at the slavers. "They brought you here to present you with a choice. I have to settle this debt, you see. And you've... inherited it. It's only fair that you get to choose how this goes."_

"_I don't have any c-caps."_

"_I know. But as it stands, a boy your age is worth plenty. You look about seven? Eight?"_

"_T-twelve."_

"_Twelve. Hm," he frowned and looked to the smoothskin in the white coat. "Isn't that a bit old?"_

"_It won't be a problem," the man reassured him._

"_Well," he said with a simpering half-smile."It looks like you have two choices after all, boy. The first option... I could sell you to these fine professionals and cash in on my debt up front, which resolves my finances easily. You'd go with them to Paradise Falls. From there, I have a fair idea about where you'd end up. Raiders in Pittsburgh are buying up slaves right and left. Miserable place. They'll work you in the steel refineries until you drop, and then use your beat up little corpse to power the furnaces. Their slaves go belly up as quick as they buy them. Now isn't that despicable? Not my first choice for you. But I'm all for giving you free agency."_

_He took a drag from his cigarette._

"_The second option, I must say, isn't ideal for my business, but I'm a charitable man. I'd let you stay here, in Underworld, on the condition that you work off your debt to me. I can't say how long it'll take, but I'll count the days in caps. I'm a man of my word. I'll be your... employer, in a fashion. I'll let you leave when your debt is paid. So which is it, boy?"_

"_The second one. Please. I'll work for you. I'll do anything."_

_Ahzrukhal smiled and leaned against the wall._

"_Hmm. Are you sure? Once we've decided, there's no going back."_

"_I'll work it off. As long as it takes... Please..."_

_Ahzrukhal turned to the man beside him._

"_I trust you'll take care of it, then."_

"_A transport's waiting."_

"_Fantastic. This is exciting. I can't thank you enough." They shook hands. Ahzrukhal handed the smoothskin a briefcase._

"_We'll collect the rest when we bring him back," the man said._

"_And when can I expect you?"_

"_Ten years on average."_

_Ahzrukhal nodded._

"_Quality takes time." He snapped his fingers at the slavers. "Give this man a hand, won't you? Grab the boy."_

_The slavers gripped him by the arms. It was all a lie. A trick. He stared at Ahzrukhal, desperate._

"_W-wait... But you... You said-"_

"_In ten years, boy. You can start working off that debt. Until then... I'll be waiting."_

"Jeezus... H-Hey. Are you listening?"

Charon stepped back from Ahzrukhal's body, blinking the smoke out of his eyes. His new employer stood next to him, dumbfounded. Charon shot them an irritated glare. The memory was gone. A part of him still wanted more, but what he managed to remember told him all he needed to know.

"Alright," he said at last. He rolled his shoulders, shaking out his locked muscles. "Let's go."

They gaped at him in disbelief, then scowled.

"No. Nuh-uh," they stammered. "Hold up. What the _fuck_ was that?"

"Ahzrukhal... was an evil bastard." Charon paused, delighting in the past tense. "So long as he held my contract, I was bound to do as he commanded. But you are my employer now. I was free to do what I wanted."

His employer glared at him, then looked away with a sigh. They turned and nudged Ahzrukhal's body with their boot.

"Fair enough," they said finally.

They stepped over the body and opened the fridge behind the bar. After a few seconds of rummaging, they pulled out an unopened bottle of wine.

"Just... don't make a habit of it," they continued. "Don't shoot anyone without asking me first. You belong to me, now. Or... S-Something. That's how this works, right? You're supposed to listen to me, aren't you?"

Charon looked at them for a moment, skeptical. The human was twitchier than Ahzrukhal on a bad day.

"I do not belong to anyone," he repeated. "You are my employer. And I will do as you command."

Charon spoke slowly, hoping it'd help the message sink in. The smoothskin uncorked the bottle, took a shaky swig, and looked sidelong at the bar full of ghouls.

"This is all a bit more than I'm used to," they admitted weakly.

They turned and stepped around the bar. Charon inhaled. He felt strange. His head was clearer than it had ever been. He watched the smoothskin as they walked towards the door. He had a sneaking suspicion they were a dewy-eyed wasteland tourist, the type that attracted trouble like a magnet. The fact that they were loaded only made it worse. With caps like that, it was hard to imagine anything less than total chaos. He had his work cut out for him. It was hard to tell what direction things would take from here, but despite everything, he felt oddly optimistic. Anything was better than rotting away in Underworld.

His employer stopped at the door and waited. They shot Charon a quizzical look.

"Well? Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

Charon nodded. He was more than happy to oblige. He stepped after them, and slung his shotgun over his back.

"As you command."


End file.
